
Class. 
Book. 



DESPOTISM IN AMERICA : 



AN INQUIRY 



INTO 



THE NATURE, RESULTS, AND LEGAL BASIS 



OF THE 



SLAVE-HOLDING SYSTEM 



IN THE UNITED STATES. 



BY 

, / 

RICHARD illLDRETH, 

ATJTHOR OF THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, THEORY OP 
POLITICS, ■WHITE SLAVE, ETC. 



BOSTON: 

PUBLISHED BY JOHN P. JEWETT AND COMPANY. 

CLEVELAND, OHIO: 

JEWETT, PROCTOR & WORTHINGTON. 

NEW TOM : SHELDON, LAMPORT & BLAKEMAN. 
1854. 



[ici J i 



Eritered, according to Act of Congrefs, in the yenr XSTA, by 

John P. Jkwett and CowrANV, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massnchusetts. 



STEBEOTVPED AT THE 
BOiTON STKRKOTYPK F O U N D H T 



tn 



Co 



" The impression which has gone abroad of the weakness 
of the South, as connected with the slave-question, exposes 
us to such constant attacks, has done us so much injury, 
and is calculated to produce such infinite mischiefs, that I 
embrace the occasion presented by the remarks of the gen- 
tleman from Massachusetts, to declare that we are ready to 
meet the question 'promptly and fearlessly. It is one from 
which we are not disposed to shrink, in whatever form, or 

UNDER WHATEVER CIRCUMSTANCES IT MAY BE PRESSED UPON 

US. We are ready to make up the issue as to the influence 
of slavery on individual and national character — on the 
prosperity and greatness either of the United States, or 
particular States. Sir, when arraigned at the bar of pub- 
lic opinion, on this charge of slavery, we can stand up with 
conscious rectitude, plead not guilty, and put ourselves 
upon God and our country." — Speech of Robert Y. 
Hayne, of South Carolina, in reply to Mr. Webster, deliv- 
ered in the Senate of the United States, Jan. 21, 1S30. 



CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTION ^'*6 

CHAPTER FIRST. 

THE KELATTON OF MASTER AXD SLAVE. 

Sect. I. — Origin of Slavery ns 

Sect. II. — General idea of a Slave-holding Community .... 36 

Sect. III. — Empire claimed by the American Slave Master ... 38 

Sect. IV. — Means of enforcing the Master's Empire 41 

Sect. V. — Methods of resistance on the part of the Slaves ... 48 
Sect. VI. — The treatment of American Slaves considered as ani- 
mals .* 56 

Sect. VII. — The treatment of American Slaves considered as men 62 
Sect. VIII. — Wealth and luxury of the Masters, as it affects the 

condition of Slaves 74 

Sect. IX. — Improvement in physical condition, as it affects the 

condition of servitude .77 

CHAPTER SECOND. 

POLITICAL EESULTS OF THE SLAVE-HOLDINQ SYSTEM. 

Sect. I — General view of the subject 83 

Sect. II. — Slavery as it affects the security of the privileged class 86 

Sect. III. — Slavery as it affects the liberty of the privileged class 92 ' 

Sect. IV. — Slavery in its influence upon Equality 96 

Sect. V. — Education in the Slave-holding States 104 

Sect.VI — Military strength of the Slave-holding States . . . . 1 07 

CHAPTER THIRD. 

economical KESULTS of the slave-holding SYSTESr. 

Sect. I. — Effect of Slavery upon the Sources of Wealth . . . .111 
Sect. II. — Slavery as it affects the amount of Capital required for 

industrious undertakings 119 

Sect. III. — Agriculture in the Slave-holding States 123 



VI CONTENTS. 

Sect. IV. — Manufactures and Commerce in the Slave-holding 
States 132 

Sect. V. — Instability and uncertainty of values in the Slave-hold- 
ing States 134 

Sect. VI. — Comparative Progress and Prosperity of the Pree and 
of the Slave-holding States 138 

CHAPTER FOURTH. 

PERSONAL RESULTS OF THE BLAVE-HOLDING-STSTEM. 

Sect. I. — Personal effects of Slavery npon the privileged class . 142 

Sect. II. — Personal effects of Slavery upon the unprivileged class 157 
Sect. III. — Points of diversity in the personal character of the 

privileged and unprivileged class 164 

CHAPTER FIFTH. 

LEGAL BASIS OF THE SLAVE-HOLDING SYSTEM. 

Sect. I. — Preliminary observations 169 

Sect. II. — Slavery as a Colonial Institution 177 

Sect. III. — Slavery in the States and under the Federal Constitu- 
tion • 219 

Sect. IV.— The Fugitive Act of 1850 253 

APPENDIX 304 



INTRODUCTION. 



It has been said, and is often repeated, that the 
United States of America are trying a great social ex- 
periment, upon the result of which hangs the future 
fate not of America only, but to a certain extent, of 
all mankind. 

The consequences likely to flow from the success or 
failure of this experiment, are doubtless exaggerated ; 
for those universal laws which regulate the feehngs 
and the actions of men, will ultimately produce their 
necessary effects, in spite of narrow systems of policy 
and morals, founded upon the success or failure of 
any single experiment. 

But whatever we may think of its probable conse- 
quences, however fancy may magnify, or reason may 
diminish them, the experiment itself is a great one. 
It is in fact far more complicated and more critical, and 
therefore greater and more interesting, than it is com- 
monly represented. 

The American experiment is usually described, as 
purely an experiment of democracy; an attempt to 
establish a perfect equality of political rights; an es- 
say towards the equal distribution among all the 
members of the community, of freedom, property, 
knowledge, social advantages, and those other good 
things which make up the mass of human happiness. 
And this experiment — as we are assured by every 
writer, native, or foreign, who has touched upon the 
subject, owing to the peculiar circumstances of the 
country, is carried on to the greatest possible advan- 



8 DESPOTISM 

tage, not being compelled to encounter a multitude of 
hostile influences, by which such an undertaking, any- 
where else, would be most vigorously opposed. 

This is not a true representation of the case. If in 
certain parts of the American Union, the experiment 
of Democracy be steadily and quietly pursued, and 
with an influence and a feehng in its favor which have 
at length become predominant, in certain other parts of 
the country it is quite overshadowed, and is reduced 
to creep pale and sickly on the ground, by another ex- 
periment, less talked about, less celebrated, but not 
the less real or important, to Avit, the experiment of 
Despotism. 

The Northern States of the Union are unquestion- 
able Democracies, and every day they are verging 
nearer and nearer towards the simple idea and theo- 
retic perfection of that form of government. The 
Southern States of the Union, though certain demo- 
cratic principles are to be found in their constitutions 
and their laws, are in no modern sense of the word 
entitled to the appellation of Democracies : They are 
Aristocracies; and aristocracies of the sternest and 
most odious kind. Property, and all the rights, ad- 
vantages and enjoyments which the laws bestow, are 
limited to certain families and their descendants. Cer- 
tain other families and their olf spring, to the latest 
generation, are not only deprived of all political priv- 
ileges and social advantages, but they are the hered- 
itary subjects, servants, bondsmen of the privileged 
class. Every man of the privileged order who is pos- 
sessed of any property at all, is apt to own at least 
one slave ; if he is rich, he may own a thousand ; but 
whether one or a thousand, of those he does own, the 
laws create him with but a single slight, and in fact 
merely nominal exception, the absolute master, lord 
and despot. In their relation towards each other, the 
members of the privileged class are nominally equal ; 
and in that aspect, it may happen that the lord of a 
plantation and five hundred slaves, shall be a great 
stickler for liberty and equality. But the liberty and 



IN AMERICA. 9 

equality for which he contends, is wholly conlnird to 
the privileged order; and the total subjection and 
eternal servitude of the unprivileged class is consid- 
ered a matter of course, a first principle, a fixed and 
established ordinance, as inevitable and as incapable 
of alteration, as the laws of nature. 

It is evident then, how complicated is the American 
experiment. If the democratical part of it, has hith- 
erto been pursued in silence and quiet, and with such 
apparent success that the admirers of Democracy 
have been ready to cry out that the problem is already 
solved ; — that quiet and silence have been merely ac- 
cidental ; that success has been only a progress which 
Avas comparatively speaking, but slightly opposed; 
and it is but now that Democracy and Despotism face 
to face, like Gabriel and the Arch-enemy, make ready 
for a desperate and dreadful struggle. The prepara- 
tion, the courage, the arms, the loftiness of soul were 
not on the part of the " angelic squadron" alone : — 

On t' other side, Satan alarm'd 



Collecting all his might, dilated stood 
Like Teneriffe, or Atlas, unremoved. 
His stature reached the sky, and on his crest 
Sat horror plum' d; nor wanted in his grasp 
What seem'd both spear and shield. — 

The struggle that impends is of a nature to shake 
the country to the centre, and to end, if we believe 
the prophecies of our southern friends, in civil com- 
motions, infuriated hostilities, and savage war. 

So it may be. The event is in their power. Let 
them be wise in time. The balance of justice is 
stretched across the sky, — and is it not their scale that 
kicks the beam ? Let them look up and read their lot 
in that celestial sign, and know themselves, hoAV light, 
how weak, if they resist. Even the arch-fiend cared 
not to struggle against inevitable fate, and fled a strife 
in which he could but suffer. 

That heterogeneous mixture of aristocracies and 



10 DESPOTISM 

democracies, which makes up the American Union ; 
that strange compound of liberty and despotism, which 
pervades the laws of so many of the States, and lurks 
demurely, in the federal constitution ; such hostile and 
repulsive elements having been so long quietly in con- 
tact without producing an explosion, it has thence 
been argued, and believed, that they might always re- 
main so. But those who reason thus, have not well 
considered the history of the American States, nor the 
kind of progress which Democracy has hitherto made. 

The dispute which severed the colonies from Great 
Britain, gave rise to constitutions in the northern 
States of the confederacy, which acknowledged to a 
greater or less degree, the leading principles of liberty 
and equality ; principles which before hardly had an 
existence, except in the speculations of a few political 
theorists. In no part of the country, were the funda- 
mental theorems of this modern system of policy, more 
generally received or more warmly maintained, than 
in the New England States, where the equal distribu- 
tion of property seemed to open the way for the easy 
introduction of a purely democratical system. 

But property is not the only source of political pow- 
er. From the earliest settlement of those States, the 
Clergy had always exercised a predominant influence. 
They formed a distinct order, acting together with 
decision and promptitude, and monopolizing all the 
learning and no small share of the active talent of the 
community. The mass of the people, though all could 
read, — an inestimable accomplishment, and under fa- 
vorable circumstances, capable in itself of becoming 
the foundation of the most liberal knowledge, — were 
yet extremely ignorant ; for they had no book but the 
bible, and for the most part they relied upon their re- 
ligious teachers with a submissive and superstitious 
dependance, for such expositions of its contents as they 
saw fit to give. In this state of the case, the power 
which the clergy exercised was very great. It was 
however for the most part a moral power, a power not 
over the bodies, but over the minds of men, and of 



>N AMERICA. 1 1 

course, it was least felt ly those who yielded to it the 
most implicit submission. Some harsh acts of perse- 
cution and punishment were occasionally deaU out to 
such insubordinate persons as were bold enouqli to 
think for themselves, or to question the infalhbie and 
divine authority of the " standing order." But in 
general, that veneration which the " ministers" claim- 
ed, was spontaneously yielded, and the power thus 
conferred was judiciously fortified by being shared 
with such of the laymen as most excelled in shrewd- 
ness, ambition, and spiritual gifts. 

The Revolution, and those questions of constitu- 
tional law to which it gave rise, and more yet, those 
extensive and iniquitous fluctuations of property which 
the paper money system produced, raised into conse- 
quence another body of men, superior to the clergy in 
active talent ; almost their equals in learning ; and if 
they were not regarded with the same aflectionate 
awe, yet both feared and respected by the people. 
These were the Lawyers. 

This new order did not hazard its influence nor 
waste its strength in a struggle for power, with the 
clergy. On the contrary, the clergy and the law^^ers 
soon formed an intimate union ; and though these lat- 
ter were sometimes a little wanting in respect for the 
theological dogmas, and the austere morality of their 
allies, these deficiencies of faith and practice were 
more than made up for, by the zeal and subtlety 
with which they defended the legal privileges of the 
clergy, and labored to uphold their influence and au- 
thority. 

This double hierarchy of law and divinity, long 
maintained a predominating influence over the yeo- 
manry of New England. Bred up on their farms in 
the simplest way, and with a deep reverence for reli- 
gion and the law, a reverence easily and naturally 
transferred to the clergy and the lawyers ; depending 
upon the pulpit for their weekly supply of knowledge 
and opinions, or if they read a newspaper, — and 
American newspapers in those times were but small 



12 DESPOTISM 

affairs — choosing such an one as the minister recom- 
mended ; the Legislature filled with lawyers, whose 
superior information, eloquence and adroitness, put 
every thing in their power ; the judges, secure in the 
tenure of their office, and the profound respect with 
which it was regarded, contributing by their decisions, 
to uphold a system of which they formed a part ; 
thus beset, hemmed in, controlled and over-awed, all 
the weaker spirits and more submissive tempers, that 
is to say, the mass of the community, cowered and 
submitted to a power, so boldly claimed, so vigorously 
enforced, and exercised on the part of those who held 
it, with a serious and sincere belief that superior 
knowledge, virtue and capacity justly entitled them 
to pre-eminent authority. 

But notwithstanding this moral oligarchy to which 
New England was subjected, the spirit of democracy 
had nestled in the bosoms of her people ; and cherished 
by degrees into energy and strength, it presently be- 
gan to plume its wings, and to make ready for assert- 
ing its just dominion. 

The history of the contest in New England, be- 
tween Democracy on the one hand, and the priestly 
and legal alliance on the other, has never yet been 
written. It is not adorned with any of those palpable 
acts, those scenes of devastation and slaughter, which 
have hitherto formed the chief topics of historic nar- 
ration ; and though a most violent and bitter struggle, 
so little has it attracted the attention of political wri- 
ters, that the progress of American Democracy, thus 
far, has been generally described as quiet, silent and 
almost unresisted. 

To one, who from the the array of the combatants, 
had divined the probable termination of the conflict, 
the speedy discomfiture of the democratical party 
would have appeared inevitable. Behind the legal 
and clerical champions who proudly led the van of the 
opposing forces, there followed a goodly host, including 
by far the most respectable, and apparently the most 
worthy portions of society. The wealthy, almost to 



IN AMERICA. J3 

a man, enlisted in behalf of the established order of 
things, which having made them rich, in their estima- 
tion, could not but be good. Besides, their wealth 
enabled them to purchase by gifts to pious uses, and 
without any special personal merit, high seats in the 
synagogue ; and sufficed to enrol them in the list of 
"gentlemen," with whom the ministers and the lawyers 
were accustomed to share their authority. Next fol- 
lowed the great mass of the religiously disposed ; for 
it requires an unnsual degree of discernment and de- 
cision, to escape from the influences of education and 
habit, and to distinguish between a reverence for reli- 
gion, and a blind submission to spiritual guides. The 
literature of the country, such as it was, naturally 
appeared on the side of those who were its principal 
patrons ; and crowding in the rear, came the young 
talent and ambition of the times, anxious to sus- 
tain a system, which seemed to offer a rightful pre- 
eminence to talent, and to ambition a station above 
the vulgar level. 

The array upon the other side, was contemptible 
in comparison. Some leaders there were, '^ sons of 
hberty," who had been nursed in the cradle of the 
revolution, whose character, whose honor, whose pat- 
riotism was unquestionable, and upon whose clear 
reputation not all the outrageous calumny of their op- 
ponents could fix the shadow of a stain. And there 
were some followers too, who seemed to love democra- 
cy for itself; men enamoured of the idea of equality, 
who sought no private advantage, but only the public 
good. But these, whether leaders or followers, were 
comparatively few. The mass of the party seemed 
made up like the band of David, when he rose in rebel- 
lion against the Lord's anointed ; — all who were in 
debt, all who were in distress, all who were discon- 
tented, enlisted beneath this banner; and to believe 
the account of their opponents, not the tatterdemalions 
of Falstaff's enlistment were more idle, vicious, dis- 
honest and dangerous. 

The truth is, that so stern, severe, active and influ- 
2 



14 DESPOTISM 

ential was the authority which the allied hierarchy 
exercised, that few men who had property, standing, 
character, friends, to lose, cared to risk the consequen- 
ces of those bulls of excommunication which Avere 
fulminated from the pulpit and the press, and those 
torrents of calumny, denunciation, and abuse, poured 
forth by a thousand fluent tongues, against whomso- 
ever deserted the ark of the covenant, and allied him- 
self to the uncircumcised Philistines. 

The democratic party were not wanting in eflbrts 
to enlist the powerful aid of religion upon their side. 
They made friends with the Baptists and other dis- 
senters from the established creed, who cherished an 
hereditary hatred toward the congregational priest- 
hood, and who were struggling to escape from the le- 
gal disabilities with which their heresies still continued 
to be visited. These clerical allies, in imitation of 
their opponents, mingled religion with politics, and 
sought to turn the excited feelings of their hearers, 
into political channels. They were denounced by the 
regular order, as hedge-priests, sectarians, wild enthu- 
siasts, pufled up with a ridiculous over-estimate of 
their spiritual endowments, ignorant, turbulent, bad 
men, who in attempting to overturn the platform on 
which was raised the sober edifice of congregational- 
ism, sought to destroy the foundations of society, and 
to mix up all things in chaotic confusion. 

In this situation of affairs, democratical principles 
were still enabled to gain the ascendency in New Eng- 
land, and to become the prevailing creed, by the joint 
effect of two separate causes, each of which was per- 
haps potent enough in itself to have ensured the vic- 
tory. 

Though the professors of these principles were pro- 
scribed by the New England oligarchy, declared desti- 
tute of any claims to attention or indulgence, represented 
as wild political fanatics, the disciples of Robespierre, 
desirous to abolish religion, and to root up morals, to 
destroy the natural instincts of humanity, and to sprin- 
kle the land with fire and blood; they found encourage- 



IN AMERICA. 15 

ment, support and aid, where there was the least rea- 
son to expect it, to wit, at the hands of the southern 
slave-holders. Who could have anticipated that the 
apostle of American democracy should himself have 
been an aristocrat and a despot ! Yet so it was. Jeffer- 
son is revered, and justly, as the earliest, ablest, boldest 
and most far-going of those who became the expounders 
and advocates of the democratical system in America. 
Most of the others, whether leaders or followers, 
seemed driven on by a blind instinct. They felt, but 
did not reason. Jefferson based his political opinions 
upon general principles of human nature. Men were 
supposed, in other systems of politics, to be helpless, 
blind, incapable children, unfit to take care of them- 
selves, and certain, if the experiment were tried, to do 
themselves presently some dreadful and irreparable 
harm. Jefferson argued, that however weak and blind 
men might be, yet their own strength and eye-sight 
were still their surest hope, and best dependance. If 
aid were elsewhere sought, whence could it come? 
These guides, these guardians, these governors, who 
are they 1 Are they not men, weak and blind ? Worse 
yet, men ready to betray the confidence placed in them, 
and under pretence of protection, themselves to plun- 
der and oppress ? It is therefore better to make each 
man, blind and weak though he be, the chief guardian 
of his own welfare. Subject no man to the arbitrary 
control of another, who if he may be wiser and bet- 
ter, may just as likely, be blinder and be worse. Such 
necessary rules of social conduct as the judgment of 
the majority shall approve, let them be laws, so long 
as that judgment continues to approve them ; and let 
the laws govern, and the laws alone. 

Such was the political creed of Jefferson. It is the 
creed of democracy ; and he espoused it with a warm, 
an active, almost a fanatic zeal. The perfect political 
equality of all men ; the absolute right of every man 
to be guided by his own pleasure and judgment, so 
long as he transgresses no law, and his equal claim to 
a fair participation in the enactment and repeal of 



16 DESPOTISM 

every law ; these were the very fundamental principles 
of this political system. Yet Jefferson remained all 
his life the tyrant of a plantation, in the enforcement 
of an usurped authority, either personally, or by his 
delegate, which he himself describes, as " a perpetual 
exercise of the most boisterous passions, — the most 
unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading 
submission on the other." Ah Truth ! 'Tis thee 
alone that men should reverence ! Do they reverence 
men, it is an idolatry as base as if they bowed to stocks 
and stones. Men are blind and weak, the wisest and 
the best ! But Truth, — it is unblemished, in itself 
complete, divine, pure, perfect ! 

Had Jefferson attempted to preach the full extent of 
his doctrines in his native state, he would doubtless 
have drawn down upon his head a storm of hatred and 
reproach, not rashly to have been encountered, nor eas- 
ily to have been withstood. But that was an adven- 
ture of difficulty and peril, which he felt no call to 
undertake. Like Henry and Washington, and those 
other great men whose devoted patriotism and many 
virtues would make us willingly forget that on their 
own estates they were tyrants, — though he acknowl- 
edged the trampled rights and crying wrongs of the 
disenfranchised half of his fellow countrymen, he yet 
despaired to make any impression upon the ignorance, 
the prejudices, the blind and narrow self-interest of 
the privileged class, and he contented himself with 
now and then a protest against a system of tyrannical 
usurpation, which carried away by custom and con- 
venience, he still continued to uphold through the sup- 
port of his own example. 

The democracy which he preached at home, was 
democracy among the aristocrats ; — and the perfect 
equality of all the members of the privileged order, has 
ever been a popular doctrine in all aristocracies. The 
''love of liberty" is a phrase under Avhich are includ- 
ed two feelings of a very distinct, and sometimes of 
an opposite kind. Each individual is always the ar- 
dent and zealous champion of his own liberty, be- 



IN AMERICA. 17 

cause the hatred of all extraneous control, the desire 
to be solely governed by the free impulses of his own 
mind, is a part of the constitution of human nature 
too essential ever to be wanting. Hence it is that we 
find kings and emperors among the champions of lib- 
erty and equal rights, by Avhich they understand, the 
liberty of governing their own realms w^ithout foreign 
control, and the absolute equality of all crowned 
heads. Have we not seen the Austrian and Russian 
despots, leaguing with the king of Prussia and the 
haughty aristocracy of England to vindicate the liber- 
ties of Europe against the usurpation and tyrannies of 
a Bonaparte ? When the chains threatened to bind 
them^ Avhen they were like to be compelled to bow 
their necks beneath the yoke of a master, who more 
sensitive than they to the degradations of servitude 7 
Who more zealous, more earnest, more sincere in lib- 
erty's cause 7 Alexander of Russia turned a dema- 
gogue, and the princes of Germany harangued their 
subjects, not in the dry and austere style of absolute 
authority, but with the supplicating tone, the humble 
and insinuating eloquence, the flattery and fair prom- 
ises, with which ambitious men, in popular states, seek 
to inveigle the popular favor. 

This passion for personal liberty burns fiercely in 
the soul of every human being, and no where fiercer 
than in the hearts of an aristocracy bred to its posses- 
sion, and who have learned to estimate its value by 
having constantly before their eyes the terrible con- 
trast of servitude. 

But the "love of liberty" has also another mean- 
ing. It describes a passion not for individual freedom, 
but for the freedom of all men ; a wide, expansive 
feeling, the ofispring of benevolence, the height of phi- 
lanthropy, the extension to others of that which we 
find best and most desirable for ourselves ; its exten- 
sion not only to those to whom we are bound by fa- 
miliar ties of interest and sympathy, our friends and 
kindred, or those whom however otherwise uncon- 
nected with us, we still assimilate to ourselves bv 
2# 



18 ITESPOTISM 

some real or fanciful analogies ; but absolutely, its ex- 
tension to all men, — the love of freedom wherever, by 
whomsoever, exercised, as an abstract good. 

It is evident that the love of liberty in this high 
sense, can shine out in perfection only from hearts the 
warmest, souls the most cultivated, minds the most 
lofty, unclouded and serene. But fragments of it, 
sparks from this celestial flame, sometimes but dim, 
the smallest atom almost, and that too buried, and quite 
smothered amid the ashes of selfish passions, — yet 
dim or bright, smothered or burning clear, this passion 
for universal freedom is still a part of human nature, 
but a part of it which lies dead and dark in unculti- 
vated souls, and which only begins to kindle and to 
blaze, in the forward and quick feeling minds of a pol- 
ished and reflecting age. 

To this latter feeling, noble and refined, and which 
lurks, however invisible, even in the hearts of a slave- 
holding aristocracy, Jefferson did not dare to appeal. 
He was content to act the humble and comparatively 
inconsiderable part of a champion for equality among 
the aristocrats ; and laboring to forget that the unpriv- 
ileged class — some of whom, to believe the voice of 
common report, were his own children, — had any 
greater capacities or rights than beasts of burden, he 
curtailed the expansive and universal clauses of his 
political creed, till the mantle of liberty which should 
have extended its protection to every citizen, embraced 
within its torn and mutilated folds only the privileged 
order. 

The oligarchical party in the southern aristocracies, 
the aristocracy, so to speak, of the privileged order, 
though they were richer and better educated than their 
neighbors of the common sort, had no such moral hold 
upon men's minds as the hierarchy of the north. The 
prejudices in favor of family and rank to which they 
were indebted for the general acknowledgment of 
their superiority, had been shaken by the revolution, 
and after a short and ineffectual resistance, the oli- 
garchical party in Virginia and the Carolinas was 



IN AMERICA. 19 

completely broken down by the vigorous assault which 
the JefFersonians made upon them. Henceforward the 
most complete and democratical equality among all the 
members of the privileged class, became the settled 
and established creed of southern politics. But the 
JefFersonian party, while it aimed at overturning the 
oligarchies of the southern states, aimed also at supre- 
macy in the federal government ; and the same victory 
which assured their ascendency at home, raised their 
leader to the presidential chair. 

From that elevation, Jefferson stretched forth a help- 
mg hand to the struggling democrats of New Eng- 
land ; and by means of the honors and offices within 
his gift, he enlisted into their cause divers mercenaries 
of courage and ability, who were seduced from the 
ranks of the hierarchy, and having taken pay at the 
hands of democracy, fought vahantly in her cause. 

As the JefFersonians continued for twenty-four years 
at the head of the federal government, and during all 
that time, consoled, comforted, aided and abetted the 
democrats of New England, the party began presently 
to grow somewhat more respectable ; and as the ad- 
vantages to be derived from belonging to it became 
more and more numerous, converts were multiplied, 
and presently there might be numbered among them 
even some of the clergy and the lawyers. 

It is evident that this process alone would at length 
have given to democratical principles a nominal, if not 
a practical ascendency. But as I have mentioned, 
there was another cause in operation, in itself suffi- 
cient to have ensured an ultimate, and a more sub- 
stantial triumph. Notwithstanding the grand array 
of followers mustered by the hierarchy, there were 
many among them who at heart were traitors to the 
cause. They had been bred up in a horror of dem.o- 
cracy, which they were taught to regard as the con- 
centration of all possible evil, and to the repetition of 
certain dogmas containing the substance of the oligar- 
chical creed. Yet insensibly they became democrats 
themselves ; and the superior order, to maintain its 



20 DESPOTISM 

influence and preserve its ascendency, was soon oblig- 
ed to descend to all those arts of popularity, which 
when practised by their opponents, they had denounc- 
ed as fit only for demagogues. 

The power of the priestly and legal hierarchy consist- 
ed in their monopoly of talent and education, and in a 
certain superstitious reverence with which they were 
regarded by the people. So long as these two sources 
of power continued in full operation, their credit could 
not be shaken, and their influence carried every thing 
before it. But with the progress of time, and the in- 
creasing wealth of the community, education became 
more general, books and periodicals were multiplied, 
and knowledge was disseminated. The oligarchical 
order lost their superiority in this respect, and with it, 
they lost the awe and veneration of the people. To 
complete their discomfiture, they quarrelled among 
themselves on certain points of theology; and as the 
dispute waxed warm, the parties to it became more in- 
tent upon destroying each other's influence, than upon 
maintaining their own. 

Such was the end of the oligarchical rule in New 
England, of which some vestiges yet remain, but of 
which the life and spirit has departed. The political 
creed, generally and it may be said, universally, pro- 
fessed, — albeit the ancient regime has still many se- 
cret adherents, — is a purely democratic creed, and the 
struggle for influence and ofiice between contending 
politicians, turns wholly upon the question, who among 
them are the best democrats, who are most devoted to 
the interests of the people ? 

Though the New England States formed that part 
of the Union which held out longest against the general 
reception of the democratic theory, yet the equal distri- 
bution of property, the more extensive difl*usion of 
knowledge, and that feeling of personal independence 
and equahty long cherished among the people, made 
them from the beginning, the best adapted of all the 
states, to enter fully into the spirit of democracy, and to 
display, in the most striking light, the advantages of 



IN AMERICA. 21 

that form of government. Accordingly it may be said 
that the New England States, notwithstanding some 
gross defects m their political and social system, afford, 
at this moment, the most remarkable approach any 
where to be found, toward the theoretical perfection of 
ideal democracy. 

But it was not in New England alone, that the pro- 
gress of the democratical experiment met with opposi- 
tion. The middle states — New York, New Jersey and 
Pennsylvania, — at the era of the revolution, contained 
an oligarchy of rich land-holders, who assumed, and 
for some time retained, the exclusive political control 
of their respective communities. To this landed aris- 
tocracy the lawyers joined themselves, as also the cler- 
gy, whose influence though by no means equal to that 
of their brethren in New England, was far from con- 
temptible. The yeomanry of those states were in 
general, rude and ignorant. As there was no systemX 
of public schools, many of them were unable to read ; j 
and if they were free from some of the prejudices of \ 
tlie New Englanders, they were far behind them, in I 
knowledge, industry, self-respect, and that sensibility/ 
of mind and heart, which civilization produces. 

Jf the members of the oligarchical party in these 
states, could have agreed among themselves, they might 
long have maintained their influence and authority. 
But presently they quarrelled, and divided into hostile 
and bitter factions. Certain persons among them, 
whether to secure the popular favor by putting them- 
selves forward as the champions of popular rights, or 
some of them perhaps, sincere converts to the creed, 
soon declared themselves the patrons and champions 
of democracy; but as they had a powerful resistance 
to contend against at home, and opponents who, though 
discomfited, still kept the field, they were fain to yield 
the precedence to Jeflerson and his southern supporters, 
and to be content with the second part, where they 
would gladly have claimed the first. 

As to the states north-west of the Ohio, which are 
now beginning to occupy so conspicuous a place in the 



22 DESPOTISM 

Union, their origin is so recent, and their population 
has hitherto been so much engrossed with the cares 
and occupations incident to new settlements, that as 
yet, they have exercised but a 'limited influence upon 
the sentiment and opinions of the country. That in- 
fluence however has been almost purely democratic, 
and from the very birth of those communities, democ- 
racy has always been their prevailing political creed. 

These slight and imperfect historical sketches lead 
us to a fact of the greatest importance towards a cor- 
rect understanding of the progress, present state, and 
future prospects of political opinion and political action, 
in America. Ever since the formation of the federal 
constitution, down almost to the present moment, 
strange as it may seem, the democratic party of tlie 
Union has been headed, guided, governed and con- 
trolled by certain slave-holding aristocrats of the south; 
— Jeflerson, Madison, Monroe, and Jackson have been 
successively, its leaders, and its idols. 

Under Jefferson, theoretical democracy was a new 
thing; and it was embraced with all the warmth which 
novelty is apt to inspire. It formed a principal topic 
of public discussion ; and was defended, if not always 
by sound reasonings and substantial arguments, yet 
with the enthusiastic zeal of sincere conviction. 

But presently the public attention was diverted into 
other channels, and became engrossed by matters 
with which democracy had little or no connection. 
Under Madison, the great question was, whether the 
United States should resent and repel the insults and 
the wrongs heaped upon them by foreign powers, and 
if so, whether they should make war against the 
tyrant Bonaparte, or the English aristocracy. The 
democratic party was in general favorable to Bona- 
parte, for he was the child, and he had declared him- 
self the heir, and had seized upon the inheritance of 
the French Revolution. But the very fact that they 
were led by irrational sympathies, and the ardor of 
political controversy, to wink at, to apologize for, and 
almost to defend, the violence and outrages of a mili- 



IN AMERICA. 23 

tary usurper, was so contrary to their principles, and 
produced such a confusion of ideas, that the great 
doctrines of their creed dropped almost out of sight, 
and whether or not oite was favorable to a war with 
Great Britain, presently became the test of political 
orthodoxy, — a test altogether aside from the funda- 
mental principles of the democratical system. 

Under Monroe, the great controversies of the day, 
respected the protection of American industry ; a pure 
question of national economy, upon which people 
took sides, for the most part, not according to their 
political opinions, but according to the views they en- 
tertained of the efiect which this protection would be 
likely to have upon their own private pecuniary in- 
terests. 

During the administrations of Madison and Mon- 
roe though the democratic creed was predominant 
throughout the greater part of the country, and 
though during the interval, it achieved its fmal tri- 
umph in New England, yet beginning in those states 
where it had earliest prevailed, and extending gradual- 
ly to the rest, it degenerated almost into a mere form 
of words without force or vitality. 

This state of things is easily explained. The 
leaders of the democratic, as of all other political par- 
ties, were for the most part adventurers, — mere sol- 
diers of fortune, who sought credit, honors, office, and 
power, by the zealous advocacy of principles which 
they saw to have many adherents, but for which they 
themselves felt no very devoted love, apart from the 
advancement to which they hoped these principles 
might help them. That advancement attained, the 
party triumphant, themselves in office, they looked 
with feelings of contempt upon the ladder by which 
they had ascended, they were even desirous to cast it 
down, lest perchance stronger men might climb up 
thereby, and thrust them from their places. 

The mouths of the prophets being closed, the peo- 
ple wandered as sheep without a shepherd ; and 
though the democratic creed was publicly professed 



24 



DESPOTISM 



by all, there lurked in the hearts of many a cold in- 
difference, a sneering scepticism, a silent disbelief. 

With Monroe terminated the direct hne of the Jef- 
fersonian succession; and then began that struggle 
for the possession of the presidential chair, which has 
ever since been so pertinaciously kept up, — a contest 
in the earlier part of which no one had a larger share 
than John C. Calhoun, a person likely to figure in 
history, for the instruction and amusement of man- 
kind. 

That able, but restless and unprincipled man, first 
came into public life as a leading democrat ; but that 
was at a time when democracy in its current sense, 
meant little more than hostility to Great Britain. 
Coming from South Carolina as he did, it was but 
natural that he should be, as he was, a thorough 
aristocrat; and that not content with the mere supre- 
macy of one race over another, he desired to concen- 
trate all political power in the hands of a chosen 
few, of whom he himself should be the chief and 
leader. 

But satisfied by the result of his earlier experi- 
ments, that the aristocratical party was not strong 
enough to bestow that power at which he aimed, and 
that even if it were, he would encounter on that side, 
some dangerous competitors ; he turned short about, 
and recollecting the success of Jefferson, resolved to 
try a new means of advancement, and to summon 
up, from the slumbers of some sixteen years, the 
genius of Democracy, which he fondly hoped to be 
able to convert into the mere servant of his political 
schemes. 

The magician was able, and the charm worked 
well. Dimly in the distance, hazy and indistinct, ap- 
peared a figure, whose broad proportions told that 
time and slumber had but increased its stature and 
its power. One foot upon the western prairies, the 
other amid the snowy hills of New England, it strode 
across the land. The people saw and worshipped. 
A new enthusiasm was kindled in their hearts. No- 



IN AMERICA. 25 

thing could resist it. Those who put themselves 
forward as the priests, the favored, the chosen of this 
new avatar of democratical reform, were received 
with confidence, welcomed with acclamation, and en- 
trusted with power. So far the thing worked well, 
and he who had called up this apparition of democra- 
cy, succeeded in installing, as its high-priest and 
chosen minister, a man who had been a slave-trader, 
a man who was a slave-holder, who preached liberty 
and equality at Washington, but who at home was 
the despot of the Hermitage ! 

His purposes thus far accomplished, he who had 
raised the spirit sought to lay it. But it defies his 
power. Among the crowd of hypocritical worship- 
pers and blind devotees, there are found a few whose 
homage is at once enlightened and sincere. They 
look upon democracy not with a stupid gaze of admi- 
ration, unable to distinguish between the apparent 
and the real, but with a discernment, upon which the 
arts of political cunning will not easily impose. De- 
mocracy, in their estimation, is not a mere phantom 
by whose aid the credulous may be deluded, and offi- 
ces and honors be secured to the deluders ; it is a real 
existence, a substantial thing, a powerful and essen- 
tial means of advancing the public welfare. It is to 
these adherents, that Democracy now entrusts herself. 
From being the nursling, the pupil, the instrument of 
Southern despotism, she is about to become a rival 
and an enemy. The allegiance she has so long yield- 
ed to Southern step-fathers, she will yield no longer. 
The alliance is broken ; and conscious of superior 
power and higher claims, Democracy demands hom- 
age and submission, where hitherto she has paid 
them. 

She prepares to act. She points in sorrow, shame 
and anger, to the capital turned into a slave market; 
to the broad plains of the south, Vv^atered with the 
blood of their cultivators ; and to the thousand petty 
despots, each arbitrary lord and irresponsible tyrant, 
upon his own plantation. 
3 



'26 DESPOTISM 

It is in vain that southern oppressors console them- 
selves with ideas of the insignificance of those Avho 
make the first assault. They may ridicule them as 
fools, fanatics, women. What of that ? Does the re- 
sult of an attack depend upon the prudence, or the 
wisdom of those who have volunteered for the forlorn 
hope? Wliat matter who or what they are, those 
who rush blindly and devotedly upon the open-mouth- 
ed cannon, the leveled bayonets of the enemy ? They 
are but food for powder, and they know it. In every 
great cause it is necessary that some should perish. 
But if the cause be great, for one that falls, ten will 
be found ambitious so to suffer ! 

It is in vain we at the North, cry out that the con- 
test is unseasonable and premature. It has begun ; it 
must go on. Grant that over-zealous and fanatical 
haste has precipitated a struggle which we would 
gladly have deferred, and slumbering out our own 
time in quiet, have thrust upon the days of our chil- 
dren. No matter. In this thing we cannot liave our 
way. The trumpet has sounded ; the bold and un- 
quiet are rushing to the field. We may cry peace, 
peace, — but there is no peace. Fight we must, upon 
one side or the other. The contest is begun already, 
and will soon become general. In such a struggle 
there can be no neutrality. It is time to be choosing 
under which banner we will stand ! 

To every one at the North, Democracy is to some 
extent familiar. Many have doubtless viewed it 
through a deceptive medium, and have seen it only 
as it has been reflected by ignor?aice, or distorted by 
prejudice; all however ha,v6 formed some opinion 
about it, and that opinion is founded upon knowledge 
either actual or imaginary. But Despotism, the des- 
potism of the slave states, is a thing known" at the 
north only by name, and in general. Few have seen 
it; fewer still have studied it ; and the greater part 
are totally ignorant of its real character. 

Before enlisting, it is well to know the cause in 
which we are to serve. It is the purpose of the fol- 



IN AMERICA. 27 

lowing pages to exhibit the system of social pohty 
estabhshed in the southern states, such as it is in its 
opemtion and effects ; not in particular and accidental 
instances, but generally, and by virtue of those laws 
of human nature upon Avhich the working of social 
and political institutions must depend. 

This inquiry is necessary for our own satisfaction. 
Without making it, how can we act either reasonably 
or safely? Here is a question with two sides to it, 
and one side or the other, we must take. How can 
we choose without knowledge? Despotism may be 
an excellent thing, well entitled to our warmest sup- 
port; but how can v/e know it to be so, without 
knowing what it is ? 

Yet are we stopped short, in the very threshold of this 
inquiry, by the threats and execrations of the south. 
Dare to inquire ; dare look behind the veil that hides 
our private doings; dare question us, or any of our 
acts, and we dissolve the Union ! Such an imperti- 
nence is lawful cause of war, and we will wage it ! 

Indeed ! — It is necessary then to weigh these threats. 

The Union of the States has been made the occasion 
and the theme of a great deal of unmeaning declama- 
tion. An idea seems to prevail, that excellent a thing 
as the Union is, the people, ignorant and short-sight- 
ed, may sometime take it into their heads to think 
otherwise ; and therefore it is necessary to create a 
prejudice in favor of the Union, — a sort of feeling for 
it like that feeling of loyalty, which has often upheld 
a throne in spite of the vices and the tyranny of him 
who sat upon it. 

Under a democratic government, prejudices of this 
sort are not only useless, they are highly mischievous ; 
they are but manacles and fetters put into the hands 
of the artful and designing, by means of vv^hich the 
people are bound, and shorn, against their interest, 
and against their judgment. 

The men who formed the Union were neither bet- 
ter nor wiser than ourselves. For certain arguments 
and reasons in its favor, they formed it ; for certain 



28 DESPOTISM 

arguments and reasons in its favor, we should sustain 
it; not for itself: for in itself, it is neither good nor 
bad. It may be either, as circumstances are. 

What are these reasons and arguments in favor of 
the Union 1 Briefly these ; that the Union serves to 
protect us against aggressions from abroad, and civil 
war at home ; that it is the best guarantee of our 
independence and our freedom. 

But suppose this same Union to be made the pre- 
text for a violent interference with our dearest rights ? 
Suppose that under pretence of preserving the Union, 
we are to be deprived of the liberty of the press, the 
liberty of discussion, the liberty of thought, — nay 
more, the hberty of feeling, the right of sympathy 
with those who suffer ? Suppose this Union requires 
to be cemented with blood, and that we are called 
upon to surrender up the noblest of our sons and 
daughters to be tortured to death by southern whips, 
for the grievous sin of having denounced despotism 
with the generous emphasis of freedom? 

Are we ready to bow thus submissively before the 
grim and bloody shrine of this political Moloch ? Are 
we prepared to make these sacrifices? When the 
thing has changed its nature, what though it still re- 
tain its former name ? Though it be called a Union, 
what is it but a base subjection, a miserable servitude? 

Some eighty years ago, we had a Union with Great 
Britain, a Union that had lasted for near two centu- 
ries, a cherished Union, the recollection of which 
kindled a glow in every American bosom ; not a fra- 
ternal Union merely, but closer yet, maternal, filial. 
That connection had many things to recommend it. 
It sustained our weakness; it brightened our ob- 
scurity ; it made us partakers in the renown of 
Britain, and part and parcel of a great nation. 
What curses, eighty years ago, would have blighted 
the parricide, who should have gone about to sever 
that connection, so dear, so beneficial ! 

The mother country, not satisfied with the affec- 
tion of her daughter, sought to abuse her power, and 



IN AMERICA. 29 

to extort a tribute. But were all the advantages of 
onr Union with Britain to be given up, merely to 
avoid the payment of a paltry tax on tea ? Were all 
the calamities of civil war to be hazarded, all the 
miseries of a hostile invasion, intrigues Avith foreign 
powers, and their dangerous interference, public debts, 
standing armies, the risk of anarchy, and of military 
usurpation ? 

Yes, all, said our fathers, all is to be risked, rather 
than surrender our pecuniary independence, rather 
than become tributary to a British parliament ; rather 
than be taxed at the pleasure of the mother country. 
A Union upon such terms is a mockery ; it is not the 
Union we have loved and cherished. We scorn it, 
and we spurn it. 

So our fathers said. And when it is undertaken to 
deprive us not of our money, — which, for the sake of 
peace, we might be willing to part with, — but of that 
whose value money cannot estimate; when it is at- 
tempted to shut out from us the atmosphere, the essen- 
tial life-breath of liberty; when it is sought to gag 
our free mouths, to forbid and stop the beating of our 
free hearts; to subdue us by penal statutes into a 
servile torpidity, and an obsequious silence, shall we 
hesitate one moment to repel this impudent effort of 
despotism, because, if we refuse to submit, it will en- 
danger the Union ? Perish the Union ; let it ten times 
perish, from the moment it becomes inconsistent with 
humanity and with freedom ! 

Should South Carolina declare that war, for which, 
as she asserts, she has such lawful cause, and march an 
army northward to enforce silence at the point of the 
bayonet, the sons of those men who fought at Lexington 
and Bunker Hill, will perhaps know how to repel the 
invaders ; and those states which furnished soldiers, 
generals, arms and money, to re-conquer Carolina from 
Cornwallis and Rawdon, will be able, peradventure, 
to vindicate their own liberties against any force which 
Carolinian despots may be able to send against them. 

In this matter, let us learn a lesson from these very 
3# 



30 DESPOTISM 

Carolinians. It is now some twenty years since, that 
South Carolina considered herself aggrieved, by what 
she esteemed the usurpations of the federal govern- 
ment. She accused Congress of levying taxes, which 
the constitution did not authorize. No matter wheth- 
er the charge were true or false ; those who made it, 
doubtless were sincere. And did they quietly submit 
to this aggression, ratlier than endanger the Union by 
their resistance ? Not they. 

Though denounced at the north as rebels and traitors, 
though coldly looked upon even by those states which 
shared the grievance, and which had promised to as- 
sist in the redress; though unaided and alone, and 
harassed too by a large party at home, who threat- 
ened, in the event of hostilities, to take sides with the 
general government, — the South Carolinian leaders 
magnanimously dared to "calculate the value of the 
Union ; " and they concluded, like brave men as they 
were, that rather than give place to what they es- 
teemed oppression, rather than be ruled in a manner 
which no constitution authorized, rather than submit 
to an usurped authority, it were better to break the 
Union, and risk a war. 

The bold are always less in danger than the timid. 
The strength and resources of South Carolina com- 
pared with those of the remaining states, were but as 
dust in the balance ; yet rather than provoke violent 
resistance, by an exercise of doubtful authority. Con- 
gress yielded ; the tariff was modified, and the prin- 
ciple of pure and unlimited protection was totally 
abandoned. 

If South Carolina calculated the value of the Union, 
when it was only a question of tariffs and of taxes, 
shall we hesitate to calculate its value, when the 
dearest rights of manhood are in danger ? when we 
are commanded to submit in silence, and not dare to 
criticise the despotism that controls us? 

Let them break the Union, if they choose : it is a 
matter wherein they are free to act. But before they 
break it, they Avill do well to revise their calculations 



IN AMERICA. 31 

of its value. What the southern States would be, if 
they stood alone; what elements they have within 
themselves of civilization, greatness, safety, strength, 
and power ; what sort of a nation they would form, if 
isolated, and cut off from intercourse with their north- 
ern neighbors, is an inquiry which will find its proper 
place hereafter. But there are some more obvious 
considerations, which our southern friends Avill do 
well deliberately to weigh, before they judge fit to 
dissolve the confederacy, and to break up those con- 
stitutional guarantees by which they are now protect- 
ed. As sister states, talk as they may of the mis- 
chievous intermeddhngs of the north, they enjoy 
privileges and an impunity, they never could expect 
from a foreign, an offended and a hostile nation. 
Those unhappy fugitives who had once reached the 
borders of States then truly free, could never be re- 
claimed ; as between independent nations, the tortures 
and the death wantonly inflicted upon northern citi- 
zens would no longer be regarded with a careless un- 
concern; and how many forays from the frontiers, 
how many crusades of liberty would there not be un- 
dertaken, by men anxious to redeem from slavery, if 
not their own relatives, those at least whom they re- 
gard as brothers? These collisions, sooner or later, 
would inevitably bring on war ; and the broad banner 
of emancipation, with fifty thousand men to back it, 
once displayed, and gayly flaunting on the southern 
breeze, farewell, and forever, to the despotisms of the 
south ! 

But here we are met again. 

If you have no regard for yourselves, say our south- 
ern friends, fool-hardy and fanatical, if you do not 
tremble at that annihilation with which we threaten 
you, — pray, at least, have some consideration for us. 
Remember the delicacy of our situation. Do you 
wish to involve us in all the horrors of a servile in- 
surrection !■ Why scatter " seed that will presently 
germinate, and sooner or later will ripen into a har- 
vest of desolation and blood?" 



32 DESPOTISM 

How this solemn objurgation is to be reconciled with 
the loud threat of severing the Union, and enforcing 
silence and submission at the point of the bayonet, 
those can best tell who are accustomed to join that 
threat and this objurgation. In the mean time, we 
may remark a curious analogy. 

When the Jeffersonian aristocrats of the south first 
began to preach the doctrines of democracy, it was in 
terms like these that they were greeted by the north- 
ern oligarchs. '' Bad men, wicked, turbulent, sedi- 
tious, fanatical, contrivers of mischief, what mean ye, 
what do ye desire ? Would you uproot society from 
its foundations ? Would you abolish religion 7 Would 
you overturn morality ? Would you do away with 
government 1 Would you dissolve all ties 7 Would 
you put an end to the established order and rightful 
propriety of things 7 

" What 7 — Do you seek to elevate the most ignorant 
and abandoned of society to a level with us, their bet- 
ters and natural superiors 7 Would you deprive us of 
that power and authority which God has seen fit to 
entrust to us, which is our natural right, and which 
we exercise so much to our own honor, and the bene- 
fit of those we rule 7 

"Yes: — and you talk of guillotines too ; you dare 
to denounce us as t^a'ants: you are organizing a con- 
spiracy for a general insurrection, and for the slaugh- 
ter and destruction of all good men. Out upon ye, ye 
Robespierres, ye Dantons, ye blood-thirsty knaves ! 
Democrats forsooth ! — Jacobins, atheists, murderous 
villains ! Why scatter seed that will presently germi- 
nate, and sooner or later, will ripen into a harvest 
of desolation and blood 7 " 

So they preached, and so they prated, from pul- 
pits and the press. Yes, and they passed lavv^s too. 
There was the Alien Law, whereby all dangeroits 
foreigyiers were to be excluded from the country ; and 
there was the Sedition Laiv^ intended to gag the press, 
and to subject those who spoke disrespectfully of the 
powers that were, to the penalty of fine and imprison- 
ment. 



IN AMERICA. 33 

When the southern aristocrats offered to our fathers 
the precious boon of democracy, such was the loath- 
ing, such the strugghng rehictance, and such the pas- 
sionate indignation with which they received, and 
would have rejected it. And now that we, in our 
turn, recollecting with gratitude, the good offices of 
the South, seek to repay the favor, and commend to 
their lips that same draught, of their own concocting, 
which however bitter to the taste has health and vigor 
in it, life and strength ; they in their turn, with the rage 
and malice of spoiled and wayward children, reject the 
medicine, snap at the nurse, and load their best friends 
with frantic maledictions. 

Let us be patient with them ; — they are sick. Yes 
very sick; and when the fitis on, light-headed. Com- 
pared with their disorder, all the fierce fevers that in- 
fest their clime are mild and trivial. What angry 
passions, what tormenting fury, what anxious fears, 
what cares, forebodings, terrors, tremors, seize upon 
the despot, when he feels the sceptre slipping from his 
grasp, and sees his subjects ready to claim their free- 
dom? 

How he has governed ; how he has trodden under 
foot men good as he ; what wrongs he has mflict- 
ed ; what cruel, bloody, barbarous, bitter wrongs, he 
knows full well. He dreads a retribution ; he shakes 
and changes color when he thinks how just that retri- 
bution, and if complete, how ample ! Though he be 
brave, a coward conscience chases away his courage ; 
a cold sweat stands upon his brow ; and he becomes 
as fearful as a child, while phantom images of guilty 
actions flit round his pillow, — 

By the apostle Paul, shadoivs to-night 
Have struck more terror to the soul of Richard, 
Than could the substance of ten thousand soldiers 
Armed in proof. 

Those frightful visions which afflict the south ; 
they are but shadows. One act of generous justice, 



34 DESPOTISRI IN AMERICA. 

of prudent justice, which yields what it can safely 
keep no longer, shall absolve the greatest tyrant of 
them all, and send him forth, a neophyte from the 
baptismal font of freedom, pure, washed, and spotless ; 
and he may w?Jk, like Sylla the ex-dictator, through 
the streets of Rome, unguarded, undisguised, and 
meet at every turn one he has injured, yet never 
suffer harm ! 

But an act like this requires a moral courage a noble- 
ness of soul, not common. That justice is the highest 
expediency, is a maxim which our southern friends 
sometimes repeat, but a doctrine which they have not 
the wisdom, nor the magnanimity to practise. 

In the mean time they need our help, our most judi- 
cious care. But to afford it, we ought to understand 
their actual condition ; we must make ourselves fa- 
miliar with that melancholy state of things, of which 
they are at once the champions and the victims. 

And this knowledge is necessary to us not on their 
account only, but also on our own. AVe form a part 
of the same nation. It is hardly possible for one mem- 
ber to suffer, and the disease not to extend sympatheti- 
cally to the whole body. Suppose a general insurrec- 
tion at the south, — who would be called upon for men, 
arms, and money, to put it down ? Suppose the slaves 
rise upon their masters, — is it not the democrats of the 
north, who are constitutionally bound to draw their 
swords in behalf of despotism ? — those very democrats, 
who have said and sworn, that resistance to tyrants 
is obedience to God? 

Let us learn, then, the full extent of this obligation ; 
let us know what that system is, which we may thus 
be called upon to uphold ! 



CHAPTER FIRST. 

THE RELATION OF MASTER AND SLAVE. 



SECTION I. 

The Origin of Slavery. 

The relation of master and slave, like most other 
kinds of despotism, has its origin in war. By the 
confession of its warmest defenders, slavery is at best, 
bat a substitute for homicide. 

Savages take no prisoners ; or those they do take, 
they first torture, and then devour. But when the 
arts of life have made some progress, and the value 
of labor begins to be understood, it is presently dis- 
covered that to eat prisoners, is not the most profitable 
use to which they can be put. Accordingly their lives 
are spared ; and they are compelled to labor for the 
benefit of their captors. Such is the origin of Slavery. 

It was formerly a practice in America to sell as 
slaves such Indian prisoners as were captured during 
the frequent wars waged with the aboriginal inhabit- 
ants. But the great mass of those unfortunate per- 
sons held in servitude throughout the southern states, 
derive their origin from another source. 

A Virginian planter deduces the legitimacy of his 
dominion by the following process. Your great-grand- 
mother being captured by a certain African prince, — 
in a war, undertaken, doubtless, for the mere purpose 
of making prisoners, — was sold upon the coast of 
Guinea to a certain Yankee slave-trader ; and being 
transported by him to James River, was there sold to 



36 DESPOTISM 

a certain tobacco planter. In time, your great-grand- 
mother died ; but she left children, to which as a part 
of her produce, the owner of the mother was justly- 
entitled. From that owner, through diverse aliena- 
tions and descents, the title has passed to me ; and as 
you are descended from the woman above referred to, 
it is quite clear, how perfectly reasonable and just my 
empire is. 

Whether in point of logic and morals, the above 
deduction is completely satisfactory, is not now the 
question. The nature of the master's claim is stated 
here, only as an assistance towards obtaining a clear- 
er apprehension of the relations which must grow out 
of it. 



SECTION II. 

General idea of a Slave-holding Community. 

Slavery then is a continuation of the state of war. 
It is true that one of the combatants is subdued and 
bound ; but the war is not terminated. If I do not 
put the captive to death, this apparent clemency does 
not arise from any good-will towards him, or any ex- 
tinction on my part of hostile feelings and intentions. 
I spare his life merely because I expect to be able to 
put him to a use more advantageous to myself. And 
if the captive, on the other hand, feigns submission, 
still he is only watching for an opportunity to escape 
my grasp, and if possible to inflict upon me evils as 
great as those to which I have subjected him. 

War is justly regarded, and with the progress of 
civilization it comes every day more and more to be 
regarded, as the very greatest of social calamities. 
The introduction of slavery into a community, amounts 
to an eternal protraction of that calamity, and a uni- 



IN AMERICA. 37 

versal diffusion of it through the whole mass of socie- 
ty, and that too, in its most ferocious form. 

When a country is invaded by a hostile army, 
within the immediate neighborhood of the camp it 
becomes impossible to make any effectual resistance. 
However fierce maybe the hate with which they look 
upon the invaders, the inhabitants within the range 
of their scouting parties, are obliged to submit. They 
are made to furnish wood, forage and provisions; 
they are forced to toil in the entrenchment of the 
camp; their houses are liable to be ransacked and 
plundered, and their women to be subjected to the 
lusts of the soldiers. Upon certain emergencies, the 
ablest bodied among them will be armed, surrounded 
by foreign squadrons, and obliged to fight against 
their own countrymen. But though plundered with- 
out mercy, and liable to the most frightful injuries, 
yet as their services are valuable, and even necessary 
to the invaders, they must be allowed to retain the 
means of sustaining existence ; and if under all the 
discouragements to which they are subjected, they 
neglect or refuse to cultivate their fields, they must 
be driven to work at the point of the bayonet, lest the 
invaders might suffer from their neghgence, and fall 
short of forage and provisions. 

Now every plantation in the slave states is to be 
looked upon as the seat of a little camp, which over- 
awes and keeps in subjection the surrounding peasan- 
try. The master claims and exercises over his slaves 
all the rights of war above described, and others yet 
more terrible. Consider too that this infliction is not 
limited to a single neighborhood, as in the case of an 
invading army, but is scattered and diffused over the 
whole extent of the country ; nor is it temporary as 
in the other case, but constant and perpetual. It is 
by taking a view like this, that we are enabled to form 
a primary, general, outline idea of the social condition 
of a slave-holding community. 
4 



38 DESPOTISM 

SECTION HI. 

The Empire claimed by the Master. 

The relation of master and slave, as we may con- 
clude from the foregoing statements, is a relation 
purely of force and terror. Its only sanction is the 
power of the master ; its best security, the fears of the 
slave. It bears no resemblance to any thing like a 
social compact. Mutual interest, faith, truth, hon- 
esty, duty, affection, good-will, are not included, in 
any form whatever, under this relation. 

But let us descend somewhat into particulars, and 
inquire more specifically what is the nature of the 
empire claimed by the master. 

That empire is the most absolute and comprehen- 
sive which it is possible to imagine. The master 
considers his slaves as existing solely for his benefit. 
He has purchased, and he possesses them for his own 
sake, not for theirs. His sole object is to obtain the 
greatest possible profit out of them. 

Perhaps to obtain this greatest profit, it may be ne- 
cessary to feed them plentifully, and clothe them well, 
and to allow them certain, intervals of rest, and other 
like indulgences. If the master is of that opinion, he 
acts accordingly. But in so acting he merely pvn'snes 
his own advantage. If he has adopted the contrary 
opinion, if he imagines that he can save more by re- 
trenchment than he can make by outlay, in that case 
he cuts down the allowance of rest, food, and clothing, 
and endeavours to supply the deficiency by the stim- 
ulus of the lash. It is a mere matter of calculation 
either way ; not a question of morals, but a mere 
problem of domestic economy. The slaves are not 
thought of as sentient beings, but as machines to be 
kept in profitable operation. 

One who visits a slave-holding community, for the 
first time, if he have any feeling of humanity and 
any spirit of observation, is puzzled and shocked, by 



IN AMERICA. 39 

what appears to him a series of distressing uncongrui- 
ties. Men who in their relations towards those wliom 
they acknowledge as fellow-citizens, fulfil with promp- 
titude and exactness all the duties of benevolence and 
justice, in their conduct towards their slaves, often 
seem destitute of all human sympathies. 

This course of action results from the very position 
of a master ; and men naturally of the most benevo- 
lent dispositions, become reconciled to it by force of 
custom and education. The soldier, frank, generous, 
warm-hearted, ready to share his last dollar with his 
comrade, from the moment he enters an enemy's 
country becomes a violent, fierce, and brutal robber, 
who plunders whenever he has opportunity, without 
hesitation or remorse. 

It is exactly so with the master of slaves. His con- 
duct towards his fellow-citizens, and towards his ser- 
vants, is regulated by rules and considerations totally 
distinct. In making this distinction, he is supported 
by the laws of the land, and the dogmas of the church; 
upheld by the example and countenance of his friends 
and neighbors ; and encouraged by the approbation, 
open or implied, of all the world. If nobody finds 
fault with his conduct, why should he think of chang- 
ing it? Why relinquish a lordship and a revenue, 
which every body tells him he does right to retain? 

The value of this lordship, and the amount of this 
revenue, would be nothing at all, if instead of looking 
steadfastly, and with a single eye, to his own interest, 
the master should trouble himself about the well-be- 
ing of his slaves. Their well-being evidently requires 
the liberty on their part of pursuing their own hap- 
piness, according to their own notions of it ; and it 
clearly demands the disposal at their pleasure of the 
entire fruits of their own labor. That is, it requires 
the complete cessation of the master's empire. But it 
is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be at 
the same time ; so that whoever wishes to retain the 
character of a master, and to exercise the preroga- 
tives which that character confers and implies, is 



40 DESPOTISM 

driven, by an invincible necessity, to disregard the well- 
being of his slaves, and to consider solely his own 
profit. Whether indeed that profit is best promoted 
by retaining the character of master at all ; whether 
the master's interest, upon a full and comprehensive 
view of it, might not best be advanced by ceasing to 
be a master, is a question not now under discussion. 

But in communities where all are free, how many 
are there, who regard any interest except their own 7 
And wherein is the particular evil of slavery in this 
respect? 

The peculiar evil of slavery consists in the very 
fact, that the slaves do not stand in this particular on 
a level with other men ; they are not allowed to 
pursue their own interest. Not only is the well-be- 
ing of the slaves disregarded by the masters, it is 
deliberately sacrificed. Left to themselves, like other 
men, they would pursue their own happiness, with 
success, less or greater. But their own happiness is 
a thing they are not suffered to pursue ; and if yield- 
ing to the instinctive impulses of nature, they make 
the attempt, they are thwarted and driven back at 
every turn. Their own comfort or pleasure is a thing 
they are not allowed to think of at all ; or to think of 
only at the risk of the lash. 

In free communities, selfishness itself is enlisted 
mto the service of benevolence. In order to obtain 
favors, it is necessary to confer them. Mutual ser- 
vices are secured by the attraction of mutual interest. 
But mutuality is a thing which slavery knows not. 
The master does not say, '^ Work for me, and I will 
give you in return wherewith to feed and clothe 
yourself and family." "Work for me," he says, "or 
I will torture you with the lash!" If the master 
supplies the slave with food and clothes, he does not 
do it by way of compensation for labor. It is a ne- 
cessary expenditure, grudgingly laid out, in order to 
keep these human machines in motion. So far from 
being in the nature of a bargain or contract, slavery 
is nothing but violence upon one side, and compulsive 
obedience upon the other. 



IN AMERICA. ^l 

SECTION IV. 

Means of enforcing the Master^ s Emjyire. 

To sustain an empire of the kind above described, 
it is evident that the most vigorous means must be es- 
sential. 

The means employed are chiefly three, to wit : force^ 
terror^ fraud; and according to the different tempers, tal- 
ents, habits and notions of the master, one or the other 
of these three means, is made the key of his system. 

I. Force. Those masters whose tempers are harsh, 
violent, and brutal, especially those who have never 
been softened by education, and wiio are strangers to 
the refinements of cultivated life, and others who are 
endowed with a firm, decided vigor that moves direct- 
ly to the point, and by the shortest way, rely princi- 
pally upon force. 

Is the slave late in coming into the field ? Twenty 
lashes. Is he idle ? Thirty lashes. Does he disobey 
or neglect an order ? Forty lashes. Does he negligently 
waste or destroy his master's property ] Fifty lashes. 
Is he detected in a lie ? Sixty lashes. Is he strongly 
suspected of theft ? Seventy lashes. Does he say 
or do any thing that can be construed into insolence? 
Eighty lashes. Is he guilty of the slightest act of 
insubordination 7 One hundred lashes. Does he ven- 
ture to run away ? Let him be pursued by men and 
dogs, disabled by small shot, and so soon as he is ta- 
ken, be flogged till he faints, then be worked in chains, 
locked up every night, and kept on half allowance, till 
his spirits are broken, and he becomes obedient and 
contented. Should he dare, upon any occasion, to offer 
any resistance ? Let him be shot, stabbed, beat to the 
ground with a club, and should he not be killed in the 
process, as soon as he is so far recovered as to be able 
to stand, let him be subjected to all the discipline men- 
tioned in the preceding sentence, and in addition, be 

flogged every night, for thirty davs in succession. 

4# 



42 DESPOTISM 

Such is a brief specimen of this system of plantation 
management, which some call cruel, but which those 
who follow it, merely describe as vigorous and efficient. 

11. Terror. But there are many men, naturally soft- 
hearted, who cannot look without some feelings of 
sympathetic pain, or at least of instinctive disgust, 
upon the body of an old man, or a woman perhaps, 
cut up with the lash, and scored with bloody gashes. 
The screams and outcries of the victims afiect them 
disagreeably. They lack that harsh, unfeeling vigor, 
that stern promptitude, tyranny's steadiest and most 
efficient support. TTiey endeavor to avoid the actual 
use of the whip, and to govern as far as possible, by 
the fear of it. They utter most tremendous threats, 
and strive to supply by bitter and alarming words, the 
place of action. But words, when they are found to 
be intended only as scare-crows, soon lose their effica- 
cy. It is therefore necessary to maintain a steady 
stream, and the master who governs upon this wordy 
plan, soon comes to keep both himself and his slaves, 
in a constant state of irritation and ill feeling, by a 
process of fault-finding, scolding and threats, which 
becomes a habit, and goes on from morning to night, 
from day to day, from one year's end to another. 

The slaves, who are thus made to feel every mo- 
ment the weight of tyranny, and the humiliation of 
servitude, contract towards these snarling masters, the 
sincerest hate ; and from hating, being soon satisfied 
that with all their bluster, they have not the vigor to 
act up to their threats, they come presently to despise 
them. Whether they do well or ill, it is much the 
same, the master scolds on by habit ; but though he 
scolds, as yet he does not punish ; and the bolder among 
the slaves soon begin to try experiments upon his pa- 
tience. They are encouraged by the impunity of first 
transgressions to take greater and greater liberties. 
Their example finds imitators, till presently the whole 
plantation falls into a state of idleness and insubordi- 
nacy, which cannot be longer overlooked or endured. 

The master must now give up the hope of revenue 



IN AMERICA. 



43 



from his slaves, or he must re-establish his authority. 
He begins with moderate whippings. But his first at- 
tempts in this way are laughed at, or perhaps resisted. 
He is alarmed and inflamed. Anger and fear supply 
a vigor he does not naturally possess. He storms and 
raves ; flogs without mercy ; shoots, stabs, chains, im- 
prisons, starves, tortures. His nature seems to be 
changed, and for a while he acts out the tyrant, in the 
most savage and vindictive spirit of despotism. The 
slaves bend and bow beneath this whirlwind of tyran- 
ny. The most turbulent and unmanageable, — those 
of them at least, who have escaped with their lives, — 
are sent ofl" and sold ; and presently things subside in- 
to their former state. The master grows ashamed of 
his violence, and perhaps endures some twinges of re- 
morse ; the lash is disused, and the tongue supplies its 
place. The discipline of the plantation is presently 
relaxed ; the servants become idle and insubordinate as 
before ; but this flattering calm cannot be relied upon ; 
a new storm of tyranny is secretly brewing, which 
will burst at a moment when it is least expected. 

in. Fraud. There are some masters, who pride 
themselves upon their cunning and superior knowledge 
of human nature, who make considerable use of fraud, 
in the management of their slaves ; but this is a means 
employed only occasionally, and of which the efficacy 
is not great. 

One of the most usual applications of it, is the at- 
tempt to take advantage of the religious feelings of 
the slaves, and to impress them with the idea, that 
obedience, honesty towards their masters, humble sub- 
mission, and other like plantation virtues, are religious 
duties, which God commands, under the penalty of 
damnation. 

This stratagem is chiefly practised by slave-holding 
clergymen and church members. The religious peo- 
ple of the South have been at the pains of preparing 
a slave catechism ; in some places they have establish- 
ed slave Sunday schools; and meetings for slave- 
worship are regularly held. The immediate agents 



44 DESPOTISM 

in these proceedings, are generally men of good in- 
tentions, bnt of very feeble understandings. They 
are mere tools in the hands of crafty hypocrites. The 
motive of their labors is doubtless the spiritual welfare 
of the slaves; but those by whom they are supported 
and encouraged, however tender a regard they may 
have for the salvation of their own souls, look upon 
rehgion among slaves merely as a means of plantation 
discipline ; and please themselves with the idea that 
the more religious their slaves are, the easier they may 
be managed. 

The agents employed in this double service of Chris- 
tianity and despotism, often succeed in kindling a 
warm spirit of devotion in the hearts of the slaves; 
but they have often occasion to deplore the inconsist- 
ency^, the back-sliding, the delusion of their converts, 
who cannot be made to realize in its full extent, the 
enormous sinfulness of any attempt to elude that ty- 
ranny under which providence requires them patient- 
ly, and even joyfully to submit. 

Deeply sympathizing with the sad, and almost an- 
gry feelings, with which these pious people are accus- 
tomed to lament the small success of their labors, and 
to accuse that stony-heartedness and inherent deprav- 
ity which prevents even the converted slaves from at- 
taining to the perfection of humility and obedience, 
the remark nevertheless may with all due deference, 
be permitted, — that so long as these pious teachers are 
able to construe the generous precepts of the gospel 
into an apology and a justification for tyranny, it can- 
not be considered very surprising that their pupils 
among the slaves, should instinctively acquire the art 
of reconciling with christian patience and submission, 
any and every means, whereby they can shake off, 
alleviate, or elude the usurped authority of their mas- 
ters. 

But this piece of pious fraud is falling into bad odor 
at the South. It has been found that religion causes 
an excitement among the slaves, both dangerous and 
troublesome. The rascals preach and pray when they 



IN AMERICA. 45. 

ought to be working. Besides, that religions enthusi- 
asm, which kindles so readily in the most ignorant as 
well as the most cultivated minds, gives rise to a dan- 
gerous exaltation of soul which makes the subjects 
of it obstinate and unmanageable. Religion once 
awakened in such savage and untaught bosoms, is apt 
to degenerate into a superstitious fanaticism. The 
gifted and the artful begin to see visions, and to dream 
dreams. They are not content with being hearers 
and pupils, they aspire to be speakers and teachers. 
In their sermons and exhortations, it is the vices, the 
kixury, the cruelty, the wickedness of the masters, 
upon which they principally dwell, and whence they 
draw examples and illustrations ; and who knows but 
some one more enraptured than the rest, may imagine 
himself called, like Moses of old, to smite the task- 
master, and to lead forth the oppressed children? 

For these reasons the bible has been proscribed at 
the South, as an incendiary publication ] a book not 
fit for slaves to read or hear. In some parts of the 
country the catechism is looked upon with almost equal 
suspicion ; and many masters forbid their slaves to 
hear any preacher, black or white, since they consider 
religion upon a plantation as quite out of place, a thing 
dangerous to the master's authority, and therefore not 
to be endured in the slave. 

Another stratagem, occasionally employed, when it 
is desired to stimulate the efforts of the slaves, is the 
distribution of little prizes among those who accom- 
plish the greatest labor in the shortest time. This 
contrivance works wonderfully well for a few days ; 
but as soon as it is discovered who are the ablest work- 
men, the emulation is confined to them, and the greater 
number, who have no chance to win the prize, pres- 
ently relapse into their former apathy. Besides, this 
distribution of prizes, is apt to give rise among the 
slaves to the inconvenient notion, that they ought to 
be paid for working, and the moment it ceases, they 
work more grudgingly, unwillingly and negligently 
than ever. Moreover it is expensive ; in the minds of 
most planters, a decisive objection against it. 



46 DESPOTISM 

But there are cases when force and terror cannot be 
employed, or fail to answer the purpose, and Avhere 
stratagem is necessarily resorted to. The most com- 
mon of these cases, are the detection and prevention 
of theft, and the recovery of runaways. 

Upon these occasions, the most respectable and re- 
ligious masters do not hesitate to descend to every pet- 
ty art of fraud and falsehood. They have hired spies 
and informers among the slaves ; they blacken their 
own faces, and lurk in disguise about the cabins, peep- 
ing through the cracks, and listening at the doors. 
They lure the fugitives back into their power, by the 
most ample promises of pardon, which they break with 
as little hesitation as they make them. Not uncom- 
monly they attempt to take advantage of the supersti- 
tious ignorance of the slaves, and pretend to magical 
and supernatural powers, in hopes of frightening the 
culprit into confession. They exult over the success 
of these fraudulent arts ; and in all transactions with 
their slaves, their total want of respect for their own 
word has given ample occasion for the proverb com- 
mon among the unprivileged class, which describes 
white men as "mighty uncertain." 

Of the three principal means above enumerated, and 
briefly explained, upon which the sustentation of the 
slave-master's empire depends, it is evident that the 
first involves the second: for the surest way of striking 
a deep terror into the heart is, to punish every trans- 
gression with a stern and unrelenting severity. 

It accordingly happens that those who act upon this 
plan not only have the least trouble upon their planta- 
tions, but are often comparatively popular, so to speak, 
with their servants. The certainty of punishment 
greatly diminishes the necessity of its frequent inflic- 
tion. The slaves know exactly what to expect; how 
far they can go ; and what is the limit they cannot 
safely transgress. If the rule is an iron one, it is never- 
theless steady and sure. It does not partake of that 
uncertainty, which besides being a dangerous tempta- 
tion, is in itself one of the greatest of evils. Slaves 



IN AMERICA, 



47 



are like other men; and in general, they far prefer to 
take a punishment, and have it over, to being perpetu- 
ally scolded, threatened, cursed and stormed at, even 
though there may be hope that the storm will end in 
words, and pass over without raining blows. 

But this regular and systematic discipline^ resem- 
bling the despotic precision of a well drilled army, is 
to be found only upon a very few plantations. Most 
masters and most overseers are too negligent, or too 
good humored for their business, or else are ignorant of 
the real nature, and only sure support of the authority 
they exercise. They overlook some offences because 
they do not want the trouble of punishment; some they 
permit to go unnoticed, because they hate to flog a wo- 
man, or a child ; some allowances they make for the 
petulance of old age, or the hot temper of youth. But 
every liberty that goes unpunished is made a pretence 
for yet greater liberties ; the slaves, ahvays eager and 
watchful to regain any particle of freedom, perceive 
in an instant, and with unerring sagacity, every indi- 
cation of weakness, or want of vigor on the part of 
their master ; they artfully break, now this link, and 
now that, from their chains; till at length, beginning 
to feel something of the spirit of liberty, their '-inso- 
lence," to use the master's phrase, becomes intolera- 
ble, and waking from his dream of indulgence and 
good nature, their despot is obliged to vindicate his 
authority, and to repress the licentiousness of his slaves, 
by a sudden outbreak of violence and cruelty, which, 
however he may excuse it by the plea of necessity, he 
cannot think of, in his sober moments, without some 
disagreeable feelings of self-condemnation. 

Thus it is that the greater part of Southern planta- 
tions are the scenes of a constant struggle ; idleness, 
encroachments, a passive resistance upon one side ; 
negligence and yielding first, then passion, violence 
and cruelty upon the other. 



48 DESPOTISM 

SECTION V. 
Means of resistance on the part of the slaves. 

We come now more minutely to consider, with what 
feelings the slaves look upon their own lot, and what 
resistance they make to the usurped authority of their 
masters. For by the very constitution of human na- 
ture, it happens of necessity, that such an authority 
must be resisted, in some shape or other. 

As to escaping from a condition to which they seem 
to have been born, and in which they are held by the 
joint interest, real or supposed, of all the members of 
the privileged class, that is, of all those who make and 
enforce the laws, and who alone possess knowledge, 
wealth and influence in the community ; — such a de- 
liverance appears impossible, and rarely enters into 
their thoughts. It is true that running away is ex- 
tremely frequent ; but in ninety-nine cases out of a 
hundred, the runaway is speedily retaken and severe- 
ly punished ; and the attempt is generally made, not 
with any hope of ultimate escape, but as a means of 
eluding for the moment some threatened misery, which 
the unhappy fugitive has not the courage to face. 

However, if a door were opened for their escape ; if 
by any circumstance they were induced to entertain 
the idea of it, and if that idea budded into hope, it is not 
to be supposed that they would stickle, or hesitate at 
any means, however horrible, that seemed necessary 
or convenient, towards the accomplishment of that 
great end. Prisoners of war, if they can but take their 
guards at unawares, are accustomed to stab them with 
their own bayonets, and by that bloody means, to break 
away. Captives, such as slaves are, must be expected 
to act upon the same ideas ; but with a promptitude 
the readier, and a hate the more earnest, in proportion 
to their longer restraint and their greater provocation. 
When has the master respected the person of his slaves'? 
Would he hesitate one moment to stab, shoot, hang, or 



IN AMERICA. 49 

burn the best beloved of his servants, if he supposed 
that servant's Hfe inconsistent with his safety, or with 
the security of that tyrannical empire, upon which de- 
pends his condition of master ? Let there be the whis- 
per of an insurrection, and the old trees of the plant- 
ation, shall dance with dying men strung thick as 
acorns. This the slaves know ; and knowing it, what 
wonder, when the desperate project of insurrection is 
resorted to, what wonder, if they grant no mercy where 
they can expect none? What wonder, if with the tor- 
ture of death by a slow fire, or by some other means 
equally cruel, before their eyes, they feel no clemency ? 
What wonder, if they steel their hearts to pity, and 
emulate their masters in bloody cruelties and barbar- 
ous revenge ? In so doing, they merely practise a les- 
son they have been all their lives learning ; all their 
lives, the sword has been pointed at their hearts, and 
if they in any way succeed in grasping it by the hilt, — 
what wonder if they use it ? 

If it were possible to speak otherwise than seriously 
upon so grave a matter, it would be difficult to point 
out any thing more ridiculous than the frantic fear, 
the panic terror, the ineiFable alarm spread throughout 
the South, by the slightest suspicion of insurrection 
among the slaves. That the women and children 
should be terrified, is natural enough ; but that men, 
men of violence and blood, accustomed to go their 
daily rounds with the pistol in one hand and the whip 
in the other, men who have every advantage on their 
side with the single exception of justice, — an exception 
however, which they afi^ect to deny and disregard; — 
that such men should stagger and turn pale at the 
mere report of a distant insurrection, can only be, be- 
cause a guilty conscience disturbs their reason, and 
frights away their courage. 

Do they not know the stake for which they play? 
Have they not considered the conditions of the game 7 
What ! — Do they entertain the puerile notion, that an 
eternal war can be waged, and all the blows, the 
thrusts, the cuts, the v/ounds, the danger, be only on 
5 



60 DESPOTISM 

one side 7 Is it so terrible and atrocious a thing^, that 
my enemy dares to struggle in my grasp? What 
though I have him on the ground, mxy knee upon his 
breast, and a dagger at his throat, is it so strange that 
even in that position, still he resists, and strives to push 
his weapon to my heart? 

Slavery being in its nature, a permanent state of war, 
although the overwhelming force of the masters re- 
strains the slaves for the most part to an apparent sub- 
mission, yet occasional outbreaks must from time to 
time be expected. The ignorance in which the slaves 
are kept, makes them incapable of perceiving the utter 
hopelessness of success ; and there are some hot tempers, 
and enthusiastic minds, which, though they did per- 
ceive it, would still be ready to risk any thing and every 
thing, for the most trifling chance of freedom and re- 
venge. The danger from these outbreaks is extremely 
small. They will cost the masters now and then a few 
lives ; but that is the fortune of war, and those brave 
soldiers who can slaughter the enemy with such per- 
fect indifference, if not with absolute gusto, ought to be 
able to lose a few of their own number, without being 
so wholly carried away with panic terror. 

An intended rising requires preparations, means, and 
an extended combination, which generally lead to its 
detection before the conspirators are ready to act. Be- 
sides, it is only under peculiar circumstances, that any 
thing of the kind can be attempted. The slaves are 
so much in the power, and at the mercy of their mas- 
ters, that they seldom venture upon any thing like vio- 
lent opposition ; they content themselves, for the most 
part, with a passive resistance. 

The master claims, and endeavors to possess him- 
self of the whole time, capacity and labor of the slave. 
The slave does not venture openly to resist this rob- 
bery; but he attempts, by all the silent and quiet means 
in his power, to evade it, to escape the exactions, and 
to diminish the plunder of his master. 

He yields his time from day-light, until dark; or 
rather he seems to yield it; for if he be not constantly 



IN AMERICA. 61 

watched, he contrives to regain hours and moments, 
which as he can apply them to no better use, he spends 
in idleness or sleep. His capacity is a thing more in his 
own power. It is in general, only certain simple acts 
of manual labor that can be extorted by force. The 
mind is free. A master cannot force his slave to rea- 
son, to remember, or except in certain cases, to hear, 
or see. If he is sent with a message, he forgets it. He 
never considers that if the fence is broken, the cattle 
will get among the corn ; and if they do, he neither sees 
nor hears them. The thing he is commanded to do, 
that single thing he does, and nothing else. The mas- 
ter would go hunting, and he sends his slave to bring 
his powder-flask. The slave sees there is no powder 
in it ; — but what is that to him ? — he does as he was 
bid, and carries the flask. When the gun is to be 
loaded, it appears then there is no ammunition. " Go 
home," says the master, 'Mn the closet on the upper 
shelf there is a canister of powder : fill the flask, and 
bring it to me." As it happens, there are two canis- 
ters, one good, the other damaged. The slave takes 
down the damaged canister first, and without further 
examination fills the flask with powder that cannot be 
used, and carries it to his master. He is set to plant- 
ing corn. The seed, it chances, is worm-eaten and de- 
cayed. What is that to him ? He goes on planting. 
It is just so in every thing else. He neglects to exer- 
cise his reasoning faculties at all. He becomes appa- 
rently as stupid and thoughtless as the mule he drives. 
Whatever capacity or understanding he may have, he 
sinl'is it, hides it, annihilates it, rather than its fruits 
should be filched from him by his owner. 

He is compelled to labor so many hours ; but he 
takes care to labor to the least possible advantage. 
Nothing stimulates him but the fear of the whip ; and 
mider the show of diligence he proceeds with the 
greatest possible dawdling and deliberation. Is he a 
brick-layer? He selects a brick with caution and 
solemnity ; he turns it over a dozen times ; he looks 
as carefully at every side of it as if it were covered 



62 DESPOTISM 

with intelligible hieroglyphics ; he feels the comers and 
the edges ; he fits it to its place ; removes it ; takes 
up the mortar; spreads and slowly arranges it with 
his trowel ; and at last — lays the brick. 

In all those processes which require any thing of 
skill or judgment, it is impossible to extort a large 
amount of labor from a slave. He conceals his idle- 
ness so cunningly, any attempt to drive him seems to 
put him into such a flatter and confusion, that he 
bungles or spoils his work, and it becomes necessary 
that it should be done over again, allowing the work- 
man his own time. The master can only insist that 
he shall devote his whole time to the work, but he 
must be content to let him dally and trifle with it as 
he chooses. 

Hence it is that slave labor is only profitable for 
those rude and simple processes, which demand no- 
thing but an exertion of muscular strength. A slave 
may be driven by the Avhip to cut up grass with the 
hoe, or to pick cotton with his fingers, nearly or quite 
as fast as a freeman, who labors for himself ; but to 
compel this labor he must be constantly watched and 
pressed ; and if the whip is not used upon his shoul- 
ders, he must at least see it brandished in the air as a 
spur to his activity. 

The day, from earliest dawn oft times till long past 
dark is all the master's; but the night, since the hu- 
man machine requires some rest and relaxation, is 
principally yielded to the slave. He is thus trans- 
formed into a nocturnal animal. During the day, he 
appears a dull, stupid, sleepy, inanimate thing, with- 
out sense or spirit, little better than an idiot, and 
neither so sprightly nor so sensible as the horse he 
drives. At night, he becomes quite another creature. 
He runs laughing, singing, jesting, to his cabin. With 
his calabash of corn, he hastens to the hand mill; and 
as one grinder succeeds another, the rumbling of the 
stones is heard all night, a doleful sound, mixed with 
the curses and execrations of those who grind. But 
it rumbles on with a steadiness which shows with 



IN AMERICA. 53 

what incessant industry the mill is plied, and which 
is evidence enough that those who grind, labor not 
for their master, but themselves. His corn cracked 
into hominy, or ground to meal, he kindles up a fire, 
and prepares his simple, and too often scanty supper; 
his family gathers about the smoking dish ; they eat 
with lively talk and laughing repartee ; and as no 
whip cracks in their ears, they readily forget that 
such a thing exists. 

The meal ended, they do not think of sleep. They 
meet for talk and dances. The more daring secretly 
mount their master's horses and ride to visit their 
cronies upon some neighboring plantation. One goes 
courting, another to see his wife ; some v/ith dogs and 
axes hunt the opossum, a night-walker like them- 
selves ; some meet to preach and pray ; others prowl 
about to see what thing of value they can lay their 
hands upon. Others yet, with bags of stolen corn or 
cotton on their heads, secretly set off to visit some 
petty trader, who receives their stolen goods in ex- 
change for whiskey. Some have a bottle on hand, 
and collecting their intimates about them, they drink, 
and emboldened by the liquor, they discuss the con- 
duct of their masters, or the overseer, with a keen 
freedom, a critical observation, an irony as bitter as it 
is just ; — happy if a prowling overseer, or some false- 
hearted spy does not stand hstening, and make them 
presently pay the penalty of free discussion. It is 
only toward morning that they think of sleep ; and it 
is surprising with how little sleep they exist. But in 
fact, their day time is but a lethargy, during which, 
though the body be active, the mind slumbers. 

But as the slaves become more numerous, and the 
masters more timid and more exacting, tyranny takes 
possession even of the night. At dark, the slaves are 
penned up like cattle, and forbidden to leave their 
huts, lest they should employ themselves in plunder, 
or in plotting insurrection ; or if merely indulging in 
sports and amusements, lest they should exhaust that 
strength and vi^or, which the master claims as wholly 
5^ 



54 DESPOTISM 

his. The dance is forbidden ; no merry laugh i? 
heard, no torch-lights are seen glancing and streaming 
on the darkness, or eclipsing the splendor of the moon, 
as the slaves pass from one cabin to another. All is 
still as night and tyranny can make it ; and if the 
slaves, spite of this despotism, yet have their meet- 
ings, for talk, for drinking, for plunder, or for prayer, 
all are equally prohibited, and they steal forth with 
slow and stealthy steps, watchful and cautious as the 
midnight wolf 

The masters grievously complain of this night- 
walking propensity on the part of the slaves. Besides 
the efforts of each planter to suppress it on his own 
estate, and the barbarous severity, with which it is 
customary to punish slaves for being found visiting 
on a plantation to which they do not belong, — public 
patrols are established for the purpose of arresting, 
flogging, and sending home, all slaves caught wander- 
ing at large without a pass, that is, a written permission. 

The two grand charges, however, brought against 
the slaves, and which are quoted by the masters as 
decisive proofs of their lamentable depravity, and to- 
tal destitution of all moral principle, are the accusa- 
tions of lyings and of theft. 

1. The slaves, we are told, are arrant liars. They 
lie for themselves ; they lie for each other ; and to de- 
ceive their master or the overseer is esteemed among 
them as an action, not blameless only, but even 
praiseworthy. 

Well, — why not? Falsehood has ever been con- 
sidered a lawful art of war; and slavery, as we have 
seen, is but a state of protracted hostilities. Do we 
not applaud a general for the stratagems and arts by 
which he deceives, misleads, entraps his enemy ? Do 
not the very masters themselves, chuckle and exult 
over the ingenious falsehoods by which they have de- 
tected a theft, or recovered a runaway? Though 
they be tyrants let them use a little philosophy. Di- 
onysius did so, and so did Pisistratus. With their 
masters, enemies who have seized them, and who 



IN AMERICA. 55 

keep them by force, the slaves are not connected by 
any ties of social duty. It is a condition of open war ; 
and as in point of strength, the slaves are wholly 
overmatched, stratagem and falsehood are their only 
resource ; and if by bold lying, vociferous protesta- 
tions, and cunning frauds, they can escape some 
threatened aggression, if they can so secure some par- 
ticle of liberty from the prying search and greedy grasp 
of despotism, why blame them for acts, which in like 
cases, all the world has justified, and has even exalt- 
ed to the character of heroism ? 

In a slave, considered as a slave, cunning is almost 
the sole quality of mind which he has any occasion to 
exercise ; and by long practice it is sometimes carried 
to an astonishing perfection. Under an air of the great- 
est heedlessness and stupidity, and an apparent apathy 
more than brutal, there is occasionally veiled a quick 
and accurate observation, a just estimate of temper and 
disposition, lively and ardent feelings, and a loftiness 
of spirit, which some day perhaps, will burst its ordi- 
nary .cautious bounds, and terminate the life of its 
possessor, by bullets, knives, the gibbet, or the flames. 

2. It is astonishing say the masters, how destitute 
of all conscience these rasca,ls are. The best among 
them, the most pious and obedient, are no more to be 
trusted than so many foxes. Even our domestic ser- 
vants steal every thing they can touch. There must 
be a lock on every door, every trunk, every closet. 
But even the strictest watchfulness is no match for 
their arts ; and the sternest severities cannot repress 
their spirit of plunder. 

The slaves it seems then, however overmastered 
and subdued, do still, in a silent and quiet way, and 
to the best of their ability, retort upon their masters 
the aggressions and the robbery that are perpetrated 
on themselves. 

Property, it is to be recollected, is a thing establish- 
ed among men, by mutual consent, and for mutual 
convenience. The game I have killed, the fish I have 
caught, the vegetables I have cultivated, are decided 



56 ' DESPOTISM 

to be mine, and are secured to me by the consent and 
warranty of all my tribe, because the security and 
comfort of each member of it requires for himself the 
like privilege and protection. But between slaves and 
masters, there is no such compact, no such consent, no 
such mutual arrangement. The masters claim all ; and 
so far as they are able, they take all ; and if the slaves 
by stealth, by art, by cunning, can secretly regain 
the possession of some gleanings from the fruits of 
their own labor, why should they not ? It is in their 
eyes a spoiling of the Egyptians ; it is a seizure and 
appropriation of things to which they surely have a 
better title than the masters. 

Is it to be supposed that in the prosecution of a per- 
petual war, the plunder will be all upon one side? 
The disproportion is doubtless very great; the aggres- 
sors, as their strength and means are so superior, car- 
ry off rich trophies and abundant spoils ; the con- 
quered are well pleased to gather some fragments, to 
filch some trifles from the over-loaded stores of the 
triumphant invaders, who plundering upon a great 
scale themselves, are yet astonished at the depravity 
of those who plunder on a small one. To expect, 
as between masters and slaves the virtues of truth, 
probity and benevolence, is ridiculous. Slavery re- 
moves the very foundation of those virtues. 



SECTION VI, 

The treatment of American slaves considered as ani- 
mals. 

The slave-master desires to look upon his slaves as 
he does upon his horses ; to persuade himself that his 
empire over both is equally just ; and that the claims 
and rights of horses and of slaves, are confined with- 
in the same limits. 



IN AMERICA. 57 

But even in this view of the case, narrow and false 
as it is, the slave-holder too often falls lamentably- 
short of what common humanity, and ordinary good 
nature require. 

A slave is an expensive animal, since he must be 
supplied not only with shelter and food, but with fire, 
and clothing. There are however several circum- 
stances in the condition of the southern states, v/hich 
operate at present to reduce these expenses to a mini- 
mum. 

The houses of the slaves for the most part, are lit- 
tle miserable log cabins, with chimneys of sticks and 
clay, without windows, and often without a floor, 
but one step in advance of the primeval wigwam. 
They contain but one room, in which the whole fami- 
ly is huddled together without any regard to the pri- 
vacies or decencies of life ; nor are they in any respect 
superior, if indeed they are equal, to the stables or the 
cow house. The furniture is as rude as the dwelling, 
and betokens the lowest state of poverty and destitu- 
tion. When these cabins have become thoroughly 
rotten, and ready to tumble to the ground, they are re- 
built at no other expense except a few days labor of^ 
the plantation carpenter. Other things have under- 
gone great improvements ; but in the construction and 
comforts of a slave's cabin, there has been little or no 
change for upwards of a century. 

Clothing, especially in the more northern of the 
slave states is an expensive item; but as its necessity 
in those parts of the country is the more apparent, 
the good economy of furnishing a tolerable supply is 
more generally acknowledged, and the suffering of 
the slaves from deficiency of clothing, is probably 
much less than in the more southern states, where the 
mildness of the climate encourages the masters to 
stint the allowance, and where the numerous deaths 
among the slaves from quinsy, influenza, and pleu- 
risy, are a proof how insufiiciently they are guarded 
against the sudden changes from heat to cold, to 
which the whole climate of the United States is so 



58 DESPOTISM 

liable. The children, till they reach the age of twelve 
or fourteen, run about almost naked, being covered, if 
at all, only by an unwashed shirt of tattered osna- 
burgs. Their sufterings from cold must sometimes be 
excessive. 

Firewood is still so abundant throughout all the 
southern states, as in most parts of the country to 
have no exchangable value ; or to owe that value en- 
tirely to the labor expended in preparing it. The 
slaves are at liberty to take from the woods on Snn- 
da3^s, or by night, such supplies as they choose. For 
the most part, they carry it on their heads ; though 
sometimes on Sunday, they are allowed the use of a 
pair of oxen and a cart. To save steps and trouble, 
if they can do it without detection, they generally 
prefer to lay their hands upon the first fence they 
come to. 

Very different opinions prevail in different portions 
of the southern states, as to the quantity of food 
which it is necessary or expedient to allow a slave. 
In Kentucky, Missouri, and Tennessee, where corn 
and bacon are produced in great abundance, and 
where their value is small, the slaves are allowed as 
much coarse food as they desire ; and the plump con- 
dition and buoyant vivacity of the children are an 
evidence that they seldom suffer from hunger. 

In Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina, where 
corn is seldom worth above fifty cents the bushel, 
some sixteen bushels of it is considered a competent 
yearly suppler for a slave, to which is generally added, 
a weekly allowance larger or smaller, of fish or meat. 

In the states further south, which may be properly 
designated as the cotton growing states, where corn is 
generally worth a dollar or upwards the bushel, and 
where provisions of all sorts are comparatively scarce 
and high, twelve bushels of dry corn by the year, 
without any allowance of meat or fish, or any thing 
beside, is esteemed a large enough supply of food for 
a working hand. Sweet potatoes, are sometimes serv- 
ed out during the fall and winter months, instead of 



IN AMERICA. 69 

corn ; and on the rice plantations, broken or damaged 
rice furnishes the chief supply of food ; but Avhether 
it be corn, potatoes, or rice, the allowance is often 
scanty enough; and the starved, shriveled, peaked 
condition of the children upon many plantations, are 
too evident proofs how cruelly they are stinted. 

With respect to this subject, the following observa- 
tion is worthy of attention. A certain quantity of 
food may suffice to sustain life, and even strength, 
yet not be enough to appease the cravings of appetite, 
nor to stay or prevent the torments of hunger. Most 
laboring men at the North, might probably live and 
enjoy health, though their daily food were diminished 
in quantity one half, or even more ; yet this is a sac- 
rifice they would very reluctantly make ; and the cer- 
tainty of life and health would be no sufficient conso- 
lation for the gnawings of hunger, and the disquie- 
tudes of an imsatisfied appetite. 

It happens very unluckily, that tlie slaves in that 
part of the country where they are worst supplied 
with food and clothing, are yet subjected to the se- 
verest and most unremitting labors. 

In Missouri, Kentucky, North Carolina, Virginia 
and Maryland, except in those limited tracts in which 
the culture of tobacco is pursued, there are considerable 
intervals in every year, when the labor of the slaves 
is little needed, and when the tasks imposed are suf- 
ficiently light. But the cultivation of tobacco, and 
still more, that of rice, sugar and cotton, is an inces- 
sant round of labor, from one year's end to the other. 
These plants are a long time in coming to perfection. 
The labor of securing the crop, and preparing it for 
market, is very great ; and one year's work is hardly 
ended, before it is time to begin upon the next. Win- 
ter or Summer, there is no rest nor relaxation from 
constant, steady toil. 

On the whole, it may be stated that the physical 
condition of the slaves throughout the southern states, 
is far inferior in every respect, to that of the unfortu- 
nate men, confined for the punishment of their crimes 



60 DESPOTISM 

in our Northern prisons and penitentiaries. Their 
food is less savoury, less a.bundant, and far less vari- 
ous, — and a certain variety of diet seems as essentia 
to health as it is agreeable to the taste. The work de- 
manded of them is far more fatiguing and severe, the 
time of labor is longer, the clothing with which they are 
supphed is far less comfortable ; and their exposure 
far more trying. That sort of discipline which Ave 
have fixed upon as the most terrible and exemplary 
punishment of crime, — or rather a discipline much 
more severe than that, — is the regular, constant, per- 
petual condition of a large proportion of our fellow- 
countrymen at the south. 

What has been observed with respect to food, ap- 
plies with equal force to physical condition in general. 
That which is sufficient to sustain existence, is by no 
means sufficient for comfort, or for pleasure. Life 
may be supported, and protracted under such a series 
of privations that it ceases to be any thing but a con- 
tinuity of suffering. 

That the physical condition of the slaves is far in- 
ferior on an average to that of the free, may be made 
evident by some statistical considerations. During 
the fifty years from 1790 to 1840, the white popula- 
tion of the United States had a uniform increase at 
the rate of thirty-five per cent, in each period of ten 
years ; while during the same time the slave popula- 
tion increased at the rate of only twenty-nine per cent. 
In the period of ten years, from 1830 to 1840, while 
the free population increased 34.6 per cent, the slave 
population increased only 23.8 per cent. ; a striking 
proof of the alteration for the worse, in the condition 
of the slaves, produced by their transfer to the cotton 
fields of the' far south. The increase of the white 
population, by immigration from abroad, could not 
have amounted, during those ten years, to more than 
five per cent. ; still leaving a balance of increase over 
the slave population of more than seven per cent. An 
examination of the returns of the recent census of 
1850 would afford results not materially different. 



IN AMERICA. 61 

Now it is to be recollected that there are certain 

f)riidential checks, as they are denominated, constant- 
y operating to retard the increase of the white popu- 
lation. The extent to which these checks operate, 
even in those parts of the country in which the white 
population increases with the greatest rapidity, will 
be obvious, when it is considered, that in the state of 
New York, as appears from the results of the State 
census, in 1825 and in 1835, out of all the women in 
the state between the ages of sixteen and forty-five, 
that is, of an age to bear children, two fifths are un- 
married. 

Among the slaves, these prudential checks are to- 
tally unknown. There is nothing to prevent them 
from yielding to the instincts of nature. Child-bear- 
ing is stimulated and encouraged by the masters, and 
so far as it depends upon the mere production of chil- 
dren, the slave population ought to increase, two fifths 
faster than the free. Instead of doubling once in 
twenty-five years, it ought to double once in fifteen 
years. If the increase is kept down to the former 
level, it is only because disease and death are busier 
among the slaves than among the free ; and as the 
slaves escape all those kinds of disorders which spring 
from luxury and over-indulgence, this greater mortality 
can only be ascribed to greater severity of labor, and 
to destitution of the physical supports of life. 

It is often argued that self-interest alone is enough 
to make the master attentive to the lives and health 
of his slaves ; on the same principle that he provides 
corn for his horses, and fodder for his cattle. But that 
provident and enlightened economy which makes a 
present sacrifice for the sake of avoiding a future 
greater loss, however it may be generally recommend- 
ed and applauded, is but seldom practised ; and he 
who is familiar with the domestic management of the 
southern states, must know that of all places in the 
world, it is least practised there. 

An anecdote is related of a Virginian planter, who 
discharged his overseer, because sufficient cattle had 



62 DESPOTISM 

not died during the winter to farnish leather enough 
to supply the slaves with shoes. This story though 
perhaps a little exaggerated, will serve to give an idea 
of the domestic economy of the south ; and he who 
knows how many mules and horses yearly drop in 
the furrow, through starvation, over-work, and the 
abusive treatment which the slaves, emulous of their 
masters, heap upon the only creatures in their power; 
he who has seen the condition of southern cattle in 
the month of March, hundreds actually starved to 
death, and those which are alive, a mere anatomy of 
skin and bones, with hardly substance enough to cast 
a shadow, searching with feeble steps, and woeful 
countenance, for a spear or two of withered grass, 
wherewith to protract their miserable existence; he 
who has seen these things, would not much care to 
have his life or his sustenance dependent upon the 
good economy of a management so utterly thriftless 
and unfeeling. 



SECTION VII. 

The treatment of American slaves^ considered as men. 

There are some people whose sympathies have been 
excited upon the subject of slavery, who if they can 
only be satisfied that the slaves have enough to eat, 
think it is all very well, and that nothing more is to 
be said, or done. 

If slaves were merely animals, whose only or chief 
enjoyment consisted in the gratification of their bodily 
appetites, there would be some show of sense in this 
conclusion. But in fact, however crushed and bruti- 
fied, they are still men ; men whose bosoms beat with 
the same passions as our own ; whose hearts swell with 
the same aspirations, — the same ardent desire to im- 



IN AMERICA. 63 

prove their condition ; the same wishes for what they 
have not ; the same indifference towards what they 
have ; the same restless love of social superiority ; the 
same greediness of acquisition ; the same desire to 
know; the same impatience of all external control. 

The excitement which the singular case of Casper 
Hauser produced a few years since, in Germany, is 
not yet forgotten. From the representations of that 
enigmatical personage, it was believed that those from 
whose custody he declared himself to have escaped, 
had endeavoured to destroy his intellect, or rather to 
prevent it from being developed, so as to detain him 
forever in a state of infantile imbecility. This sup- 
posed attempt at what they saw fit to denominate, the 
Qnurder of the soul, gave rise to great discussions 
among the German Jurists ; and they soon raised it 
into a nQ\Y crime, which they placed at the very head 
of social enormities. 

It is this very crime, the murder of the sold, which 
is in the course of continuous and perpetual perpetra- 
tion throughout the southern states of the Arnerican 
Union ; and that not upon a single individual only, 
but upon nearly one half the entire population. 

Consider the slaves as men, and the course of treat- 
ment Avhich custom and the laws prescribe, is an art- 
ful, deliberate, and well -digested scheme to break 
their spirit; to deprive them of courage and of man- 
hood ; to destroy their natural desire for an equal par- 
ticipation in the benefits of society; to keep them 
ignorant, and therefore weak ; to reduce them if possi- 
ble to a state of idiocy ; to crowd them down to a 
level with the brutes. 

A man, especially a civilized man, possessed of a 
certain portion of knowledge, and well skilled in some 
art or science, is a much more valuable piece of prop- 
erty, and capable of producing for his master a far 
greater revenue, than a mere, two-legged human ani- 
mal, with all the failings and defects, and none of the 
virtues of a savage. But if such a slave is more 
valuable, he is far more dangerous, and far more dif- 



64 DESPOTISM 

ficiilt to manage. To extort the services of such a 
slave, by mere severity, would always be hazardous, 
and often impossible. Drive him to despair, of which 
such a man in such circumstances, is easily suscepti- 
ble, and he might violently end a life from which he 
derived no enjoyment, and court a death which offer- 
ed him, at least, the pleasure of thwarting the hopes 
of a too greedy master. With such slaves, it has al- 
ways been found necessary, to enter into a sort of 
compromise, — a treaty of peace, in which, if the claims 
of the conqueror were largely provided for, some re- 
spect has also been paid to the rights and the happi- 
ness of the conquered. The claims of the master 
have been commuted for a monthly or daily tribute; 
and what else the slave could make or gain, has been 
relinquished to his own use. He has been further en- 
couraged by the prospect of presently purchasing his 
freedom ; or of obtaining it by the free gift of a mas- 
ter well satisfied with his services. 

But though such slaves are very profitable, they 
are also, as has been above observred, very dangerous. 
Put thus upon a level with their masters, in all that 
constitutes the moral strength of men ; keenly sensi- 
tive to the injustice that is done them, and to the un- 
fair advantage that has been taken of their weakness, 
— they have ever been ready to burst into rebellion, 
have sometimes succeeded in overpowering their mas- 
ters, and have often maintained a long, a bloody, and 
a doubtful contest. 

All this is perfectly well understood at the south. 
A slave who can read is valuable on many accounts, 
and will sell for more money than one who cannot. 
A slave who can read, write, and compute, and who 
by reason of these accomplishments is able to fulfil 
the duties of a merchant's clerk, is plainly far more 
valuable than a mere field hand. One who under- 
stands the art of printing, an armorer, an apothecary, 
are evidently capable of performmg more profitable 
operations, than he who knows only how to handle a 
hoe. 



IN AMERICA. 65 

But well aware how dangerous such slaves would 
be, the privileged order have preferred to sacrifice 
profit to safety. In most of the slave holding states, 
it is specially enacted that no slave shall be taught to 
read. This inability to read, disquaUfies them at once 
for all the higher occupations. Some few are rudely 
instructed in those simple handicrafts indispensable 
upon every plantation : but custom and public opinion, 
if not the law, imperiously forbid, that any slave 
should be bred up to the knowledge or practice of any 
of the superior arts. Some publishers of newspapers, 
in defect of white journeymen, introduced slaves into 
their offices as compositors ; but the experiment was 
pronounced too dangerous, and they were obliged to 
relinquish it. 

With the exception of those employed in domestic 
service, and in the few mechanic arts above mention- 
ed, the great mass of the slaves are occupied in agri- 
culture, which, for the most part, is prosecuted in the 
rudest possible way. This is a subject which will be 
more fully considered in a subsequent chapter. Every 
thing is done by main strength, and under the direc- 
tion of an overseer. The slaves are confined to the 
constant repetition of a few simple mechanical acts ; 
and continually employed as they are in this constant 
round of stupefying labor, which is not enlivened by 
hardly a single glimpse of art or intellect ; thus shut 
out from the means and opportunity of exercising their 
higher faculties, no wonder that the soul falls into a 
deep and death-like slumber. Drugged with such a 
stupefying cup, so artfully administered, the soul 
murder if not complete, is closely approximated. The 
man loses his manhood, and is a man no longer. 
Those mental and moral capabilities which are his 
pride and glory, fall into abeyance, and apparently 
he dwindles down into something little better than 
a mere animal. 

The domestic slaves, being constantly attendant 
upon their masters, and listeners to their daily con- 
versation, cannot but pick up some crumbs of knowl- 
6# 



66 DESPOTISM 

edge, and acquire a certain habit of reasoning and re- 
flection. In consequence of these accomplishments 
they are feared, suspected, and very narrowly watch- 
ed. In all the towns and villages of the south, the 
strictest regulations are established and enforced, by 
which among other things, the slaves are forbidden to 
leave their master's houses after an early hour in the 
evening, and in many other respects, are subjected to 
a constant system of the most prying and suspicious 
espionage. 

Some writers misled by a spirit of patriotism, or de- 
ceived by views too superficial, have represented the 
system of American slavery as extremely mild, and 
quite a different thing from slavery in any other age 
or country. There is a difference it is true; but that 
difference is not favorable to us. It is easy to show, 
that in certain most essential points, — those fundamen- 
tal points by which alone a social system ought to be 
judged, — American slavery is a far more deadly and 
disastrous thing, more fatal to all the hopes, the sen- 
timents, the rights of humanity, than almost any other 
system of servitude which has existed in any other 
community. 

Slavery as it existed among the ancient Greeks and 
Romans has been often referred to, as a system of the 
extremest severity, cruel beyond any thing to be found 
in modern times.^ No doubt that system was bad 
enough. It would be well however, if other systems 
were not worse. 

The Roman master had the power of life and death 
over his slaves ; but the slaves, in this respect, stood 
upon a level with the freemen ; for the Roman hus- 
band and father had the same power over his wife 
and his children, and he might claim and exercise it, 
long after those children had passed the age of puber- 
ty, and even after they had attained to the highest 
honors and distinctions of the state. It is true that the 
laws do not confer an equal authority upon the Ameri- 
can master ; bat it is equally true that the Uves of his 

* See Channing on Slavery. 



IN AMERICA. 67 

slaves are not the less in his power. It is easy for the 
master to invent a thousand pretences for taking the 
life of any slave, against whom he may have conceiv- 
ed a prejudice. If he does not think it prudent to use 
the pistol or the knife, he needs only to have recourse 
to a somewhat more lingering process of torture, or 
starvation. 

But the great distinction between the slavery of the 
ancient world and that of America is this. The Greek 
and Roman slaves, in the estimation of their masters 
and themselves, though slaves, were yet men. It was 
true doubtless, as Homer says, that the day a man 
became a slave he lost half his manly virtues. From 
the nature of things it must have been so; but man- 
hood or a portion of it, remained, though darkened 
and eclipsed, still visible. To a certain extent at least, 
in point of knowledge, accomplishments, and the de- 
velopment of mind, the slaves stood upon a level 
with the free ; and if there be something terrible in 
the idea, — terrible because we need no preparation to 
comprehend it, — of a city sacked and plundered, and 
all its inhabitants, the noblest, the wealthiest, the deli- 
cate women, as well as the hewers of wood and the 
drawers of water, sold under the hammer of a mili- 
tary auctioneer, and thence dragged into servitude, — 
we must recollect that the accomplishments, the 
knowledge, the refinement of these unhappy captives, 
furnished also many means of alleviating the calamity 
of servitude, and presently of escaping it altogether. 

The Athenian captives taken in the unlucky expe- 
dition against Syracuse, purchased their liberty by re- 
citing the verses of Euripides. Slaves first cultivated 
the art of Latin poetry, and introduced at Rome an 
imitation of the Grecian drama. Such were Plautus 
and Terence, and almost ail the elder Roman poets. 
All the arts which give comfort and refinement to life, 
and the mere practice of which confers a certain so- 
cial distinction, music, poetry, literature in general, 
painting, medicine, education, and many others, were 
principally, or commonly practised by slaves, who 



68 DESPOTISM 

thus acquired favor, fame, freedom, and finally wealth 
and social elevation. Horace, educated at Athens 
among the sons of Roman nobles, and afterwards the 
friend and intimate of the lords of the empire, and 
the delight and pride of the Roman people, was the 
son of a freedman. Emancipations were frequent 
and were favored. The slave constantly had before 
his eyes the hope and the prospect of liberty; he thus 
had a noble object for which to live; and although 
there were in general, some political disqualifications 
which he could not expect to shake off from himself, 
wealth, consideration, and all the more common ob- 
jects of human hopes and wishes, were still spread 
out before him; and for his children — and men live 
as much for their children as for themselves, — he had 
every thing to anticipate. 

Undoubtedly the condition of the country slave, 
employed in agriculture, more nearly resembled that 
of slaves with us. But still there was an opening for 
talent and for hope. No slave was so low or misera- 
ble, that he might not aspire to freedom and to social 
elevation. 

Under this system, there existed that compromise 
between the master and the slave, which has been ex- 
plained above. If the slave lived and labored for his 
master, he also lived and labored for himself He 
was secured by custom, which is stronger and more 
effectual than lav/, in the enjoyment of a peculintn^ or 
property of his own. The relation of master and slave 
lost to a certain degree, the character of pure despo- 
tism, and approached towards that of lord and vassal, 
patron and client ; while the frequency of emancipation 
introduced into the relation of servitude, sentiments 
totally opposite to those which naturally spring from 
it. There were gleams of benevolence and of grati- 
tude; there was a twilight of good- will. Compared 
to a condition of freedom, it Avas as the gray morning 
dawn to the brilliancy of noon. Compared to the 
system of our own country, it is as that same morn- 
ing dawn to the blackness of midnight. 



IN AMERICA. 69 

It is true that we read of savage atrocities, exercis- 
ed in those ancient times, by masters towards their 
slaves. The Spartans, we are told, were accustomed 
from time to time, to send out assassins who put to- 
death the boldest and most intelligent of the Helots ; 
and it is undeniable that the frequent servile insurrec- 
tions which took place in the ancient states, were sup- 
pressed and punished by a series of the most dread- 
ful cruelties. 

But these fierce acts ought to be regarded as proofs 
not so much of the degradation of the slaves, as of 
an approach on their part, towards an equality with 
their masters. No repose is so perfect as the repose 
of absolute despotism. The unfrequent and always 
trifling disturbances among the slaves of America fur- 
nish palpable evidence how sunk they are. It is only 
where a certain portion of liberty is enjoyed, that 
more begins to be strenuously claimed, or boldly 
sought. To him that hath, shall be given ; from him 
that hath not, shall be taken away, even that which 
he hath. Such servile insurrections as take place in 
America, are faint flashes of folly or despair. The 
insurrections of slaves in ancient times, were the 
promptings of genius and of hope. 

Had the Greek and Roman masters been the same 
indolent, scattered, untrained, unready people as are 
the American planters, such were the means, the 
courage, the spirit of their slaves that they could not 
have retained their dominion for a day. In those 
times the free were all soldiers. War was their con- 
stant study and pursuit. They lived too in cities, 
ready to combine and act at a moment's warning. 
Thus they were able, by constant preparation, and su- 
perior means, aided as they were by the moral causes 
above enumerated, to maintain their authority over 
slaves, enjoying an intellectual equality with them- 
selves. Under the Roman empire, the standing army 
by which the emperors maintained their authority, 
served also to hold the slaves in subjection. Besides, 
the masters had a strong body of firm friends and 



70 DESPOTISM 

allies in the numerous. class of freedmen. The emanci- 
pations constantly going on would soon, in fact, have 
put an end to the condition of servitude, had not the 
numhers of the enslaved been kept good by fresh im- 
portations and purchases. When at length these im- 
portations ceased, slavery in towns and cities soon 
came to an end; the slavery of the country was 
changed into villanage, and vilianage ended at last, in 
liberty. 

To a certain extent, many of these observations ap- 
ply to slavery as it exists in Brazil and Spanish Ame- 
rica. However disastrous may be the social condi- 
tion of those countries, it is not destitute of allevia- 
tions. The slave is at least regarded as a man, and 
is always cheered by the prospect and the hope of free- 
dom. His efforts to obtain it by purchase, by gaining 
the good -will of his master, or by other peaceable 
means, are encouraged by the laws and by public 
opinion ; and if he attempt to qualify himself for the 
more advantageous possession of it, so laudable an 
ambition is approved and applauded. 

In the United States, with all their democracy, there 
prevails a totally diiferent system. It is laid down, 
as an indisputable maxim, that the freedom, the equal- 
ity, the moral and social elevation of the servile class, 
or any of its members, are totally inconsistent with 
the dignity, the interest, the existence even of the 
privileged order. That contempt, that antipathy, that 
disgust which the degraded condition of servitude na- 
turally inspires, is sedulously aggravated by the whole 
course of education, and is artfully, though impercep- 
tibly, transferred from condition to race; and to crown 
the whole, the idea is earnestly and in'dustriously incul- 
cated, that these suggestions of prejudice and igno- 
rance, are the very innate promptings of nature. 

In consequence, the natural sympathies of human- 
ity are first smothered and then extinguished. The 
privileged cease to consider the servile class as belong- 
ing to the same scale of being with themselves. The 
slaves in the estimate of their masters, lose all the at- 



IN AMERICA. 71 

tributes of humanity. The kindest, the most tender- 
hearted, the most philanthropic of the privileged or- 
der, learn to be perfectly satisfied when the animal 
wants of the servile class are tolerably provided for. 
To make any account of their mental wants, — that is, 
to entertain the idea that they are men, — is consid- 
ered an absurd, a misplaced and a fanatical tender- 
ness, certain, if persevered in, to uproot the founda- 
tions of society, and to end in results indeterminate, 
but terrible. 

For the slaves are regarded not merely as animals, 
but as animals of the wildest and most ferocious char- 
acter. They are thought to be like tigers, trained to 
draw the plough, whom nothing but fear, the whip, and 
constant watchfulness, keep at all in subjection ; who 
would take advantage of the slightest relaxation of the 
discipline that restrains them, to break away from their 
unwilling labors; and who if left to themselves, would 
q^uickly recover their savage nature, and find no en- 
joyment except to riot in blood. 

Whether or not there is any thing of reason and 
truth in these ideas, is not now the question. Suflice 
it to say, that they are.universally prevalent throughout 
the southern states. They are the received, the author- 
ized, the established creed. They are interwoven into 
the very frame- work of society : laws, customs, chari- 
ties, morals, and religion, all are modified by them. 
Doubtless there are men of reflection and discernment, 
and men in whom a warm benevolence supplies the 
place of reflection and discernment, who perceive more 
or less clearly, the monstrous and extravagant absurdi- 
ty of these popular ideas. But for their lives they 
dare not \vhisper the suspicion of a doubt. To do so 
would be high treason against the authority of the 
privileged order, — an order as jealous, fretful and 
suspicious as ever was the aristocracy of Venice ; and 
as apt to punish too, on vague suspicion, without a 
trial, or a responsible accuser. 

It is plain that emancipation can form no part of 
such a system. In South Carolina, Georgia, Aiaba- 



72 DESPOTISM 

ma and Mississippi, no master can emancipate his 
slave, except with the express permission of the state 
legislature, a permission not easily to be obtained. In 
North Carolina and Tennessee, the emancipating mas- 
ter must have the approbation and consent of the 
County Court. In Virginia, he must remove the 
emancipated slave, beyond the limits of the State. In 
Maryland a similar law prevails. In Kentucky, Mis- 
souri and Louisiana, the master still retains the right of 
emancipation under certain restrictions. But through- 
out all the slave states, this exertion of power — the 
only act of justice which the owner of slaves, in his 
character of owner, is able to perform — is totally dis- 
couraged by public opinion. The emancipated class 
is studiously subjected to mortifications and disabili- 
ties without number. They are considered as noxious 
vermin whose extermination is required for the com- 
fort and security of the privileged order. They are 
hunted down by legislative enactments as bears and 
foxes are in other states ; and by depriving them of all 
the rights of citizenship, advantages of society, and 
opportunities for labor, the attempt is made to ren- 
der them if possible, even more miserable than the 
slaves. These efforts have been to a certain extent, 
successful. The condition of the emancipated class, 
would seem to be wretched enough to satisfy their 
worst enemies. Yet wretched as they are, still they 
are envied by the slaves. What conclusive evidence 
of the miseries of servitude ! 

Some few emancipations occasionally take place; 
but it is obvious that the value of the boon is exceed- 
ingly diminished, by the miserable condition to which 
the emancipated class is studiously reduced. As to 
passing from the unprivileged into the privileged or- 
der, that is a thing entirely out of the question. No 
slave can expect it for himself, for his children, or 
even for his remotest posterity. The feeling which 
exists upon this subject throughout the South, is a 
perfect fanaticism. In one or two rare instances, a 
good-natured master has attempted to elevate his own 



IN AMERICA. 73 

children, born of slave mothers, to the rank of free- 
dom. But in every such case, the penalty of setting 
public opinion at defiance, has been dearly paid. The 
transgressor has been assailed in every form of ridi- 
cule, and reproach; he has been pursued Avith the 
most inveterate malice; has been overwhelmed with 
torrents of obloquy ; and held up to public scorn and 
indignation, as a blasphemous violator of the decen- 
cies of life and the sacred laws of nature. 

Here is the point at which the slaves of the United 
States sink into a depth of misery, which even the 
imagination can hardly measure. What is life with- 
out hope ? All men of reflection, whether poets or 
philosophers, have agreed, that life even in the better 
aspects of it, if we did but see things as they are and 
as they will be, would be a dreary and a worthless 
thing. It is hope that cheers, supports, sustains us. 
It is in the anticipation of future joys, that we are 
happy. But what hope, what anticipations has the 
American slave? His hopes are all fears; his antici- 
pations, if he has any, are anticipations of suffering. 
This is a state of existence which could not be endur- 
ed by cultivated or reflecting minds. The slightest 
gleam, the faintest and most uncertain glimmer, a 
hope, a chance which to all beside ourselves may ap- 
pear but the faintest, will suffice often to lead and 
guide us on, through defiles dark and gloomy as the 
valley of the shadow of death. But when that light 
goes out, that glimmer ceases, that hope expires, what 
shall save us from the horrors of despair 7 
7 



74 DESPOTISM 



SECTION VIII. 

Wealth and luxurij of the masters^ as it affects the 
condition of slaves. 

It is a fact well Avorthy of consideration, that with 
the progress of wealth and luxury among the masters, 
the sufferings, the misery, the degradation of the slaves 
have been steadily aggravated ; till at length, in the 
wealthiest and most refined of our slave holding com- 
munities, a point has been reached, both in theory and 
iii practice, beyond which it does not seem easy to go. 

The mildest form of American slavery is to be found, 
not among the pohte and well educated citizens of 
Richmond and Charleston, but amid the rude and 
wild abodes of the Creeks, the Choctaws, the Semi- 
noles, — tribes whom we describe and stigmatize, as 
savages. 

The Indian slaves, are in many respects, almost 
upon a level with their masters. The wants of sav- 
age life are few and simple. The avarice of the mas- 
ter is not stimulated by the greediness of luxury. He 
is content with a moderate annual tribute of corn and 
other provisions ; and provided this be paid, the slave 
is left at liberty to procure it as he pleases, and to em- 
ploy his time and strength as he best sees fit. It thus 
happens that an Indian slave is sometimes richer than 
his master ; and if he have talents and ambition, 
though still a slave, he may become one of the most 
influential persons of the tribe. 

The Indian slaves are well aware how superior is 
their condition to that of the miserable sufferers, who 
labor for white masters, upon cotton and sugar planta- 
tions ; and the dread they have of that lot, as well as 
the influence they are able to exercise, may be clearly 
illustrated by the case of the Seminole war. That war, 
according to the statement of those best acquainted 
with the subject, had the following origin. It was 
not that the indians themselves had such serious ob- 



IN AMERICA. 75 

jections to removal ; but as the time for the execution 
of the treaty approached, their country was overrun 
with speculators and adventurers from the states, who 
came partly to set up claims, true or false, to certain 
indian slaves, on the ground that they were runa- 
ways, or the children of runaways, who had years 
ago fled to the Seminoles for protection ; and partly to 
set on foot a slave trade with the indians, who, it was 
hoped might be induced at the moment of their re- 
moval to part with their servants for little or nothing. 
The indian slaves were filled with terror and alarm 
at this prospect of falling into the hands of white mas- 
ters ; and it is believed to have been by their instiga- 
tion and encouragement, that the Seminoles were in- 
duced to resist the execution of the treaty, and to 
commence the war. 

The small planter, who can neither read nor write, 
who has been bred up in poverty and ignorance, but 
who has wandered into some new settlement and has 
earned by his own personal labor, the means to pur- 
chase two or three slaves, next to the wild indian, is 
the most mild and indulgent master. He works with 
his slaves in the field, he converses with them and 
consults them. If either of them exhibits any pecu- 
liar shrewdness or good judgment, the master per- 
ceives it, and avails himself of it ; and such a slave 
often becomes his owner's chief confidant and adviser. 

In his fits of drunkenness, or those bursts of passion 
to which the rude and uneducated are peculiarly lia- 
ble, such a master beats and abuses his slaves. But 
he does the same thing to his wife and children. In 
general he treats them with a certain degree of ten- 
derness and familiarity ; and as they are always about 
him, by flattery, management and importunity, they 
are able to carry a thousand points, and to secure a 
thousand indulgences. 

But as such a planter grows rich, and increases the 
number of his slaves, his feelings and his conduct 
change with his condition. He appears in the field, 
not as a laborer, but on horseback, whip in hand. He 



P 6 



DESPOTISM 



begins to copy the airs and to imbibe the sentiments of 
his aristocratic, refined, and educated neighbors. He 
forgets the equal terms upon which he once hved'with 
his slaves ; he feels himself transmuted into a being 
of a superior order, born to be idle while they were 
born to work. He ceases to have any sympathies for 
them. He learns to despise them; to hear their com- 
plaints and appeals with indifference ; and to push 
them to labors, which when he worked by their side, 
he did not exact. 

Under this new discipline, and with the frugal 
habits which he acquired in his youth, this planter's 
property rapidly increases. He becomes one of the 
wealthiest men of the neighborhood ; and his son and 
heir takes rank with the choicest aristocracy. Con- 
scious of his own deficiencies in education and man- 
ners, the father secures for that son, the best instruc- 
tion he can obtain. He is sent early to school, and 
perhaps to some northern college to finish his educa- 
tion. He returns well mannered, and accomplished, 
with the refinement of sentiment and the gentle bear- 
ing which education and good company impart. The 
father dies, and the son succeeds to the inheritance. 
He has no taste for agriculture ; or if he has, he can- 
not bear the constant annoyances of a plantation. 
He leaves every thing in the hands of an overseer ; 
and is almost a perpetual absentee. 

Every reduction in the allowances to his slaves, is 
so much net addition to his own revenue. He is al- 
ways in want of money ; and as he finds it less disa- 
greeable to retrench the comforts of his slaves than 
his own luxuries, the slaves are soon reduced to the 
merest subsistence. What are their sufferings or 
complaints to him? He is not at home to witness or 
to hear them. He leaves the execution of his orders 
to an overseer. This overseer is desirous to secure 
the good graces of his employer. The surest way of 
doing so is, to make a great crop. For this purpose 
the quantity of land in cultivation is increased. The 
tasks are extended, and the additional labor necessan 



IN AMERICA. 77 

to their execution, is extorted by the whip. Between 
this new labor and these new piuiishments, the slaves 
grow insubordinate and discontented. The boldest 
aad most enterprising take to the woods. They are 
pursued with guns and dogs ; retaken ; mangled with 
the lash, and loaded with fetters. These examples 
terrify the others. They submit in silence. Order is 
restored. The discipline of the plantation is spoken 
of with admiration. The crop is unusually large. 
The owner is delighted with the result, and urgent for 
its continuance, and thus extortion and severity are 
carried to their highest pitch. 

At the same time that the physical comforts of the 
slaves are diminished, all their moral qualities are de- 
teriorated. Every bad passion is called into play. 
That state of hostility and warfare in which slavery 
orginates and consists, from being lulled, and half-qui- 
escent, becomes open and flagrant. The masters learn 
to hate the slaves, as fiercely as the slaves hate the 
masters. Presently they begin to fear them. Fear 
and hate upon both sides ! God have mercy upon 
the weaker party ! 



SECTION IX. 

Improvement in 'physical condition^ as it affects the 
condition of sei^vitude. 

Benevolence is one of those native impulses of the 
human heart, which never can be wholly eradicated ; 
and which ma^^ be seen mingling itself with actions 
that proceed from motives of a totally opposite char- 
acter. 

It is plain that the whole system of slavery is in 
violation of the dictates of benevolence ; yet no impar 
tial observer, who has resided in the southern states 
7# 



78 DESPOTISM 

of America, attempts to deny, that mingled with all 
its wrongs and crimes, there may be perceived, in 
many cases, much kind feehng on the part of the 
masters. Indeed it is but of this fringe of benevolence 
with which the dark garment of slavery is more or 
less scantily ornamented, that most of its defenders 
have woven the frail texture of their apologies. 

This benevolence however is of a very limited char- 
acter. It is confined almost entirely to physical con- 
dition. It conforms itself to the established sentiment 
of the country; it considers the slaves not in their 
character of human beings, of men, but merely as 
animals. 

It is asserted that within the last twenty or thirty 
years, as the tobacco cultivation has declined in Vir- 
ginia, there has been a great amelioration in the treat- 
ment of slaves. Many benevolent individuals have 
exerted themselves to bring about this state of things, 
by creating in the public mind a spirit of reprobation 
against instances of excessive cruelty. It may be ob- 
served in passing, that this amelioration in the treat- 
ment of the Virginia slaves, is a strong confirmation 
of the doctrines of the preceding chapter. As the 
masters have grown poor, and have been obliged to 
retrench their splendors and their luxury, at the same 
time, they have grown comparatively humane. 

The Kentuckians boast, that of all the American 
masters, they are the kindest and the best; and they 
take to themselves no little credit, for the liberal sup- 
ply of food and clothing which they bestow upon 
their servants, and the moderate labor which they de- 
mand. 

This course of treatment, so much applauded by its 
authors, is worthy of all approbation on the score of 
domestic economy. It is also gratifying to the hu- 
mane feelings of all those persons of sensibility, to 
whom the constant presence of visible sufl^ering, is the 
source of emotions far from agreeable. But when we 
consider the matter a little deeper, when we see hoAV 
this merely physical kindness operates upon the intel- 



IN AMERICA. 79 

lect and the heart, we may well doubt whether this 
sort of benevolence, however well intended, and how- 
ever on that account worthy of applause, does not in 
fact, greatly aggravate the miseries of servitude. 

So long as men are constantly pressed by merely 
physical wants, those wants absorb almost their whole 
attention. The peculiar attributes of humanity are 
scantily, or not at all, developed. They have the 
form and the aspect of men, but in character they are 
little more than mere animals ; and the gratification 
of their animal wants occnpies their total attention. 

But so soon as these merely physical necessities are 
satisfied, the mental and moral attributes begin to un- 
fold themselves. The passions bud and blossom ; the 
feelings, the desires, the aspirations of manhood dis- 
play their various forms and colors. If they might 
bear their natural fruits, those fruits would be good 
and wholesome. But crushed, withered, blasted, 
plucked up as it were by the roots, their premature 
decay evolves a deadly miasm, which poisons the 
soul, corrodes the heart, and sets the brain on fire. 

Let us consider this matter more minutely. We 
read in ancient fables and eastern tales, of men trans- 
formed by the power of magic into beasts. Here is 
an operation of an analogous kind. Here are men 
who have advanced so far as to feel that they are 
men, whom law, custom, prejudice, and the potent 
force of public opinion, confiae to the condition of 
mere beasts of labor. The more their humanity de- 
velops itself, and the more conscious of it they be- 
come, the more irritating and oppressive this condi- 
tion must be. To be penned up, driven to labor, and 
foddered by the hand of a master, — and what conse- 
quence is it though the fodder be plentiful, and the 
labor be light ? — to be repulsed from that condition 
of manhood to which they now begin ardently to as- 
pire ; to be expelled from the circle of social emula- 
tion and made mere counters in a game, of which 
they so long themselves to be the players ; to be de- 
spised, scorned, and degraded into a fellowship with 



80 DESPOTISM 

the beasts they drive ; forbidden to indulge their na- 
tural and irrepressible inclinations ; prisoners though 
at large ; forever watched ; forever thwarted ; ag- 
grieved still further by the constant spectacle of 
privileges, enjoyments, objects and pursuits to share 
in which they cannot even dream, but which increase 
in estimated value, with the hopelessness of their at- 
tainment ; — what wonder, if in souls so beset with 
grievous temptations, there should spring up and 
grow, a fierce envy, a desperate hate, an impotent in- 
dignation preying on itself, a dark, ferocious, restless 
spirit of revenge, which delay irritates, concealment 
sharpens, and fear embitters 'I What wonder, if all 
the mild feelings which soften man, and make him ca- 
pable of happiness himself, and of conferring happiness 
on others, — are choked and blasted by a rank 
growth of deadly passions ; and that he, who under 
better auspices, might have been an ornament and a 
benefactor to society, becomes a plague to others, a 
torment to himself? 

Such are the effects v/hich must inevitably be pro- 
duced upon that sensitive and irritable disposition, 
the usual accompaniment of genius; and the same 
effects, to a greater or less extent, may be expected to 
result in the case of every slave, whose physical wants 
are so far satisfied, that he becomes capable of reflec- 
tion, and passes from the narrov/ circle of animal 
desire, into the boundless amphitheatre of human 
wishes. 

Would it promote the happiness of our domestic 
animals, our horses and our oxen, supposing them to 
remain in their present external condition, to endow 
them with the passions and the intellect of men ? Who 
will maintain the affirmative of a proposition so ab- 
surd ? Yet the attempt to alleviate the condition of 
slavery, merely by improving the physical condition 
of the slaves, is an attempt, the absurdity of which, 
if it be less obvious, is precisely of the same nature. 

Keep your slaves pinched witli hunger and worn 
down with fatigue, and they remain merely animals, 



IN AfliKKlCA. 81 

or very little more. They sulTer it is true ; but they 
suffer as animals. There is a certain fixed limit to 
their misery. It has its intervals of cessation. The 
imagination has no power over it. What it is, it is. 
The present is the whole ; for the past is forgotten, 
and the future is not anticipated. 

But satisfy their hunger ; put them physically at 
ease ; give them leisure for thought, — and you create 
new sufferings more bitter than those you have re- 
moved. The man finds- that yoke intolerable, of 
which the animal hardly perceived the existence. 
For two or three wants that you have relieved, you 
have created twenty others, or caused them to be felt, 
wants incessant, unquiet, unappeaseable ; and for 
these wants there is no remedy, — no remedy, while 
you remain a master, and they slaves ! After the 
sybil had cast two volumes into the fire, the third 
remained, as costly and as precious as all the three. 
In like manner, the chain of servitude loses none of 
its weight, by parting with a portion of its links. 
While one remains, that one is heavy as the whole ! 
Nay, heavier ; — and as it dwindles to the sight, still 
it pierces deeper to the soul ; it frets and ulcerates the 
heart. At first it only bound the limbs; but now it 
penetrates, and with its murderous touch, tortures the 
vitals ! 

It is a common remark at the South, that the more 
intelligent a slave is, the more unquiet, dangerous, 
and troublesome he is. The remark is just. The 
more intelligent a slave is, the more grievously he 
feels the yoke of slavery. If a master then, through 
indulgence towards his slaves, has placed them in a 
situation of comparative physical comfort, so far from 
having a reason for stopping at that point, it becomes 
more imperatively his duty to go on. By doing what 
he has done, he has sharpened the appetite for liber- 
ty; and this appetite which he has sharpened, is he 
not the more urgently called upon to gratify 7 

Let it not be said that this argument is no bet- 
ter than an apology for a system of hard labor and 



82 DESPOTISM IN AMERICA. 

starvation, nor let any man so use it. God forbid ! 
Those are obvious cruelties; and so clearly percepti- 
ble to the senses, that no man of common humanity, 
however thoughtless and unobservant, can fail to per- 
ceive them ; and no man of common sensibility can 
bear to inflict them. I have desired to call attention 
to sufferings of another kind — mental sufferings, — not 
so obvious, yet far more excruciating; slavery's se- 
cond growth, a rank and poisonous growth, more 
deadly than the first. 

I have desired to point to the slave-holder, the fear- 
ful dilemma by which he is hemmed in. The moment 
he ceases to inflict tortures at which his sensibilities 
revolt, the moment he yields to those prayers for mer- 
cy which his own heart re-echoes to him, at that very 
moment he becomes the author of new sufferings ten 
times more severe, than those he puts a stop to. He 
irritates while attempting to soothe ; and the oil which 
he drops into the wounds of servitude becomes a bit- 
ter and acrid poison. 

This is one of those cases in which all must be 
done, or nothing. Half measures, palliatives, do but 
inflame the disease. The only cure for slavery, is, 
freedom ! 



CHAPTER SECOND. 

POLITICAL RESULTS OF THE SLAVE-HOLDING SYSTEM. 



SECTION I. 
General Vieiv of the Subject. 

The great objects aimed at, or which should be 
aimed at, in the political constitution of a government, 
are 1st, SecuritT/, 2nd, Freedom^ 3d, Equality. 

Secnrity has two principal branches, of which one 
relates to the person, and the other to property. A 
good degree of security in both these respects, is es- 
sential to the comfort, and to the advancement of 
society. 

Freedom is either political or civil. Political Free- 
dom consists in a participation, more or less direct, in 
the appointment of magistrates, the enactment of laws, 
and other public acts. Civil Freedom depends^ upon 
the supremacy of the laws. It guarantees every citi- 
zen against arbitrary and capricious interference. It 
admits of no punishments except according to exist- 
ing statutes ; and it allows the enactment of no law 
founded upon any other reason than the public good. 

Equality divides itself into three sorts ; 1st, Political 
Equality, or the equal participation in political priv- 
ileges, and the equal chance to enjoy political power; — 
in other words the perfection of political freedom ; 2nd, 
Equality of jyroperty, or the most equal distribution, 
consistent with security, of the wealth already exist- 
ing, and the equal chance to produce or acquire new 
wealth ; 3d, Social Equality, or the equal chance of 
acquiring estimation and regard by the exhibition of 



84 



DESPOTISM 



amiable and useful qualities, or the performance of ' 
meritorious actions. 

Now so far as regards the unprivileged class of the 
community, it is obvious at a single glance, that the 
constitutions of the Southern States fail totally, in se- 
curing any one of the above objects. They not only 
fail, but they do worse ; they make a deliberate sacri- 
fice of them all. 

This sacrifice is said to be necessary in order to se- 
cure the well being of the privileged class. If in fact 
it is so, it must needs be confessed that the alternative 
is Yevy unfortunate. The Southern people, if we al- 
low this necessity, are in the unhappy predicament of 
a savage tribe of which one half, in order to sustain 
existence, are driven to kill and to devour the other 
half Before we can admit the necessity of any such 
horrible experiment, every other means must first 
have been tried, and must have failed. What should 
we think of a tribe of savages who lived fat and com- 
fortable upon the blood and flesh of their brethren, 
without the slightest attempt to devise any other 
means of subsistence ; and v/ho repulsed with impa- 
tient anger and bitter reproaches, the benevolent ef- 
forts of those who would point out to them a more 
decent and innocent way 7 

It is clear that so far as the unprivileged class are 
concerned, the political results of slavery are most 
disastrous. Slaves suffer at one and the same time, 
all the worst evils of tyranny and of anarchy. The 
laws so far as they are concerned, are all penal ; they 
impose a multitude of obligations, but they create no 
rights. The compendious definition of a slave is, a 
man, who has no rights, but with respect to whom the 
rights of his owner are unlimited. If the law in some 
respects, seems to protect him, it is not in his charac- 
ter of a man, but in his character of a thing, a piece 
of property. Exactly the same protection which the 
law extends to a slave, it extends to a dog, a horse, 
or a writing desk. The master does as he pleases 
with either. If any other person undertakes to dam- 



IN AMERICA. 85 

age, steal, or destroy them, he is answerable to the 
owner, and is punished not as a violator of personal 
rights, but for having disregarded the laws of prop- 
erty. 

The constant sacrifice of so many human victims, 
amounting in several states of the American Union to 
a majority of the population, — si»ch a sweeping depri- 
vation of rights as the slave-holding states exhibit, if 
it can be justified at all, must find that justification in 
some vast amount of good, which that sacrifice pro- 
duces. This good must be principally sought for 
among the privileged class. If it exist at all it must 
be either political, — by increasing the security, free- 
dom and equality of the privileged class ; economical, 
— by increasing wealth, comfort and civilization ; or 
personal, — by its beneficial influences on individual 
character. When Mr. McDuffie pronounces slavery 
the best and only sure foundation of a free govern- 
ment, if he has any meaning at all, if this declaration 
be any thing more than a passionate paradox, — he 
must mean to imply, that the political consequences 
of slavery are of a kind highly beneficial to the mas- 
ter ; in fact so beneficial to the master as to form a 
counterpoise, and more than a counterpoise to all the 
evils it inflicts upon the slave. It becomes then an 
important question, what are the effects which slave- 
ry produces upon the political, economical, and per- 
sonal condition of the privileged class ? And in the 
first place of its pclitical results. 
8 



86 DESPOTISM 

SECTION IL 

Slavery^ as it affects the secui'ity of the privileged class. 

I. We will consider in the first place how the secu- 
rity of property is a^ected by the institution of sla- 
very. 

Property is better secured in proportion as a greater 
part of the population is made to feel a direct interest 
in its security. The moral force of opinion in this as 
in other cases, has an efficacy greater than law. Laws 
unsustained by public opinion can only be enforced 
by a great and constant exertion of physical power. 

1. With regard to the slave holding states, a large 
part of the population, to wit, the slaves, so far from 
having any personal interest in upholding the laws of 
property, have a direct and powerful interest the other 
way. The laws of property in their eyes, so far from 
being designed to promote the public good, and to con- 
fer a benefit upon all, are but a cunningly devised 
system by means of which the character and the name 
of Right is bestowed upon the rankest injustice, and 
the most flagrant usurpation. This attempt to mono- 
polize the benefits of property, this system by which 
a large portion of the community are not only depri- 
ved of those benefits but are actually themselves con- 
verted into articles of property, has the necessary 
effect to create in the very bosom of the community, 
a state of feeling utterly hostile to security. Slaves are 
universally depredators upon the property of their 
masters. Such depredation they regard as perfectly 
justifiable and even praiseworthy. It requires the 
most incessant vigilance to guard against it, nor 
will the most incessant vigilance always suffice. The 
security of the slave-master is the security of a house- 
keeper who knows that he entertains a gang of thieves 
upon his premises, and who is in constant apprehen- 
sion of being robbed. 

Nor is this systematic spirit of plunder confined to 



IN AIMER ICA. 87 

the unprivileged class. It embraces also the large 
class of free traders who gain their livelihood by a 
traffic in stolen goods. It is these persons who offer 
inducement for a large part of the depredations which 
the slaves commit upon their masters. These depre- 
dations, though small in the individual instances, are 
enormous in the total amount. The extreme severity 
with which the laws of the southern states visit the 
offence of trading with slaves in articles suspected to 
be stolen, and the terrible outrages occasionally com- 
mitted upon this sort of offenders by planters who 
think the inflictions of the law to be too mild, or too 
uncertain, are a sufficient proof in how serious a light 
these depredations are regarded. 

2. By the institution of slavery, the slaves them- 
selves become the chief article of property. Property 
of all kinds has a certain tendency to take wings to 
itself and fly away. This is peculiarly the case Avith 
slave property. In addition to all the other acci- 
dents to which slaves, in common with other species of 
property, are exposed, they have a propensity to im- 
poverish their masters by absconding. How frequent- 
ly this propensity comes into exercise, any body may 
learn by examining the columns of the southern news- 
papers. Of the slaves that run away, the greater part 
are recovered : this is true, but still the master is a 
loser. He loses their services during their absence, — 
often at the most critical moment of the crop, — besides 
the expense of their apprehension and conveyance 
home, including the reward offered, which in itself is 
often equal to half the money value of the slave. 

3. Many slaves submit with great reluctance to the 
station and duties which the law assigns to them. To 
keep these unquiet creatures in due subordination, it 
becomes necessary to wound, to maim, and sometimes 
to kill them. This chance of loss takes away in a 
certain degree, from the security of this kind of pro- 
perty. 

4. We come now to a cause of insecurity of a more 
serious character than any yet enumerated. Property 



88 DESPOTISM 

in slaves is not a kind of property generally acknow- 
ledged. There are whole nations who deny that any 
such kind of property ought to exist. All the most 
enlightened people in the world are precisely of that 
opinion. Within the last fifty years, an effort has 
been begun, — an effort which every day gathers new 
force and earnestness, — for the total abolition of this 
kind of property. The alarm which this effort pro- 
duces among the holders of slaves is natural, and it is 
great. An alarm exists at all times among slave- 
holders, because there is always a certain apprehen- 
sion lest the slaves themselves may reclaim their 
liberty by force. But that alarm reaches an extreme 
height when it is known that there are other persons, 
over whom the slave-masters have no control, who 
sympathize with the slaves, and who profess the inten- 
tion of using every moral means to bring about their 
emancipation. Moral means is a phrase which slave- 
masters find it difiicult to understand. Force^ violence^ 
is the only means with which they are famihar ; and 
this means which they themselves so constantly em- 
ploy, they naturally apprehend, will be used against 
them. The degree of alarm thus produced, is suffi- 
ciently indicated by the ferocity with which the per- 
sons called abolitionists have been assailed by the 
slave-holders, and by the savage barbarities exercised 
upon such abolitionists, or supposed abolitionists, as 
have fallen into their hands ; exercised generally upon 
mere suspicion, and with hardly any evidence that 
the sufferers were guilty of entertaining the opinions 
ascribed to them. 

Thus it appears that under a constitution authoriz- 
ing slavery, one of the chief items of property, name- 
ly, slave property, from its very nature, its total want 
of any foundation of mutual benefit, is peculiarly inse- 
cure ; and this insecurity spreads to every other kind 
of property, because the institution of slavery, by its 
necessary effect destroys all respect for property of 
any kind, in a large part of the population, and also 
creates a vast number of depredators. 



IN AMERICA. 



11. We come now to that branch of Security, 
which relates to the person. 

Here again the privileged class of a slave holding 
community are beset with alarms and dangers. These 
dangers and alarms are of two kinds, — dangers from 
the slaves, dangers from one another. 

1. Dangers from the slaves. The master retains his 
authority only by the constant exercise of violent 
means. This violence is liable at any time to be re- 
torted upon himself The subjugation and cowardice 
of those over whom he tyrannizes, afford the master 
a certain degree of security. But passion often sup- 
plies the place of courage ; and we frequently hear of 
terrible acts of vengeance committed upon the person 
or family of the master, by outraged and infuriated 
servants. 

But this danger is trifling compared with that anti- 
cipated from a rising of the servile class. Every two 
or three years the report of an insurrection, real or 
imaginary, spreads the most frantic terror through the 
southern states. The antics enacted upon such occa- 
sions, would be in the highest degree farcical, did 
they not generally terminate in bloody tragedies. 
Men Avho are individually brave, and who would 
march to the assault of a battery without flinching, 
work each other into a complete paroxism of fear. A 
single negro seen in the woods with a gun upon his 
shoulder, suffices to put a whole village to flight. 
Half-a-dozen unintelligible words overheard and 
treasured up by some evesdropping overseer, or invent- 
ed perhaps by some miscreant, who dehghts himself 
with the public alarm, are enough to throw all the 
southern states into commotion, and to bring nights of 
agony and sleeplessness to hundreds of thousands. 
But this is not the worst of it. When terror makes 
cowards it always makes bloody-minded cowards. 

Blood ! blood !— nothing else can appease the gene- 
ral alarm. Committees of safety with the most abso- 
lute authority, are every where established. On these 
committees sit many a village Tinville, many a rustic 
8# 



90 DESPOTISM 

Danton. Before these tribunals the unhappy victims 
are dragged ; accusation and condemnation keep close 
company. Hanging, shooting, and burning become 
the order of the day. The headlong ferocity of these 
proceedings betrays the greatness of that alarm which 
produces them. 

It has been shown in another place, that notwith- 
standing the extreme degree of terror to which the 
apprehension of slave vengeance gives rise throughout 
the south, the actual danger is by no means propor- 
tionately great. Many causes contribute to this dis- 
proportion, of which one leading one is, a secret con- 
sciousness of the cruel injustice of slavery. Tyranny 
is ever timid, always full of fears. 

2. Danger from one another. In this case, the alarm 
is less, but the danger is more real. Throughout the 
greater part of the southern states it is considered es- 
sential to personal safety, to carry concealed weapons. 
This single fact shows that personal security is at the 
lowest ebb. When a man must protect himself, for 
what is he indebted to the laws ? These weapons are 
no doubt carried partly as a protection against the 
slaves ; but they are chiefly used, in quarrels between 
freemen. Of these quarrels the laws take but little 
notice. In such a case it is considered the mark of a 
mean spirit to appeal to the law. If I am assaulted 
or beaten, it is expected that I stab or shoot the ag- 
gressor. In several of the southern states it seems to 
make very little difference, whether I challenge him 
to a duel, or assault him without previous notice given, 
in a tavern, or the streets. Murders are constantly 
committed in this way. For the most part they go 
entirely unpunished, or if punished at all, it is only 
by a short imprisonment, or a trifling fine. They fix 
no imputation upon a man's character. Persons guilty 
of homicide are to be met with in the best society of 
the southern states. If it be inquired what is the con- 
nection between this condition of manners and the 
existence of slavery, the answer is, that the imperious 
ferocity of temper which the exercise of despotic 



IN AMERICA. 91 

power produces or inflames, is the main cause of the 
existence and the toleration of an insecurity of person 
and a recklessness of human hfe, such as hardly else- 
where prevails in the most barbarous countries. 

But even this is not the worst aspect of the case. 
The panic terror which the rumor of an insurrection 
produces at the south has been already mentioned. 
That terror levels all distinction between slaves and 
freemen, and so long as it lasts, no man's person is 
secure. During the period of the Mississippi insurrec- 
tion, or pretended insurrection, in the summer of 1835, 
the committee of safety appointed upon that occasion, 
by a tumultuous popular assembly, were vested with 
ample authority " to try, acquit, condemn, and punish 
white or black, who should be charged before them." 
By virtue of this commission, the committee proceeded 
to try a large number of persons, principally white 
men, accused of having instigated, or favored the al- 
leged intended insurrection. Many of those tried 
were found guilty, and were hung upon the spot. A 
great many others were cruelly whipped, and were 
ordered to quit the state in twenty-four hours. 

The case of Mr. Sharkey will clearly exhibit the 
degree of personal security existing in the state of 
Mississippi at that time. Mr. Sharkey was a magis- 
trate, and in the exercise of his legal authority, he set 
at liberty three men, of whose entire innocence of the 
charges alleged against them he was well assured, 
although they had been seized by the pursuivants of 
the committee of safety. This gentleman was a plant- 
er, a man of property, a large slave-holder, brother 
to the chief justice of the state, — a person not very 
likely to be implicated in a slave insurrection. But 
his opposition to the despotic authority of the com- 
mittee was considered to be plenary proof of guilt, 
and a large party was sent to arrest him. Mr. Shar- 
key had no relish for being hung upon suspicion ; so 
he barricadoed his doors, built fires about his house, 
in order that the darkness of the night might not con- 
ceal the approach of the pursuivants, wrapped his 



92 DESPOTISM 

infant child in the bed clothes to save it from the bul- 
lets, loaded his muskets, and quietly waited the at- 
tack. His left hand was dreadfully shattered by the 
first lire of the assailants ; but he succeeded in killing 
their leader, in wounding several of the rest, and in 
compelling a retreat. By this time his friends and 
connections began to collect about him, and a party 
was formed in his favor. Had he been less wealthy, 
or less influential, he would inevitably have perished. 



SECTION in. 
Slavery as it affects the liberty of the privileged class. 

One of the chief branches of civil liberty consists 
in the unrestricted disposal of one's property. There 
are restrictions which are necessary; but the more 
these restrictions are multiplied, the more is liberty 
restrained. 

By the institution of slavery, slaves become one of 
the principal kinds of property ; but in the free dis- 
posal of this kind of property, the slave-master at the 
South is very much restricted. The "sacred rights 
of property," as to which he is apt to be so eloquent, 
with regard to that very suBject-matter with respect 
to which he considers them most sacred, are closely 
restrained by laws of his own enacting. 

To set a slave free, is certainly the highest act of 
ownership ; the only one indeed which a truly virtuous 
man ought to exercise ; and certainly the last one 
which a person of any manly spirit would be willing 
to surrender. But in the greater part of the southern 
states, the master is deprived by law of the right of 
emancipation. Here certainly is a most grievous in- 
fringement upon liberty. 

The right to improve one's property so as to increase 



IN AMERICA. 93 

its productiveness and give it an additional value, is an 
essential part of civil liberty. But this is a right of 
which, as respects his slaves, the southern master is 
in a great degree deprived. In most of the slave 
states it is a highly penal offence to teach a slave to 
read. Now reading and writing are essential to many 
employments. These accomplishments, and others 
which by their means the slave might acquire, would 
greatly tend to enhance his value, by making him 
capable of more valuable services. But the master is 
not allowed to improve his property in this way. The 
law interferes to prevent it- 
Considering slaves merely as property, here are two 
grievous infringements upon the master's liberty. But 
consider them as men, and the infringement upon the 
master's freedom of action is still more intolerable. 
I am deprived by law of the capacity to be benevolent 
and just. I am ready to confer upon a fellow being 
the highest boon which man can give or receive ; — 
but the laws do not permit me to confer it. Perhaps 
the slave is my own child. No matter: he shall re- 
main a slave to the day of his death, unless I can 
obtain as a particular grace and favor, a special per- 
mission to set him free. Is this liberty? Is not the 
servitude of the father as miserable almost as that 
of the son ? 

The authors of these laAvs have plainly perceiv^ed 
that the natural dictates of humanity are at Avar with 
the institution of slavery ; and that if left to their own 
operation, sooner or later, they would accomplish its 
overthrow. To perpetuate the slavery of the un- 
privileged class, they have fettered up those senti- 
ments of the human heart, which are the foundation 
of morality and of all the charities of hfe. For the 
sake of brutalizing others, they have sought to bar- 
barize themselves. 

Liberty of opinion, liberty of speech, and liberty of 
the press do not exist in the southern states of the 
American Union, any more than under any other 
despotism. No doubt there are some subjects which 



94 DESPOTISM 

may be very freely discussed there ; but the same is 
the case under all despotisms. Any body may freely 
discuss at Rome or Moscow, the merits and demerits of 
American slavery. The only prohibited subjects are, 
the plans of government and systems of policy upheld 
by the pope or the czar. So at Charleston or Rich- 
mond, one is at full liberty to discuss subjects having 
no obvious bearing upon the political system and 
social condition of Virginia or South Carolina. But 
approach that subject, lisp the word, slavery ; dare to 
insinuate that the existing system of southern society 
is not the best possible system ; assail ever so cau- 
tiously the tyranny of the slave-masters ; point out 
ever so temperately the inevitable wretchedness of 
the slaves, and you will soon be taught that despotism 
is as jealous, as watchful, and as fierce, in America 
as in Europe. 

The discussion of this prohibited subject is not only 
visited by severe legal penalties, under pretence that it 
has a tendency to produce insurrections, — the same 
reason, by the way, which is given at Rome and Mos- 
cow, — but it is still more effectually suppressed by the 
terrors of Lynch law, a system of procedure, which 
in cases of this sort is either openly countenanced, or 
secretly abetted by the gravest jurists of the South. 

Not only is discussion prevented, but it is dangerous 
to receive, to read, even to have in possession, any 
book, pamphlet or newspaper which has been en- 
rolled in the Index Expurgatorms of the slave-holding 
Inquisition, or which, though not proscribed byname, 
appears to treat upon the evils of slavery and their 
remedies. 

The United States post-office at Charleston was 
violently assaulted by a mob, headed by the principal 
inhabitants of the city, and a large part of its con- 
tents publicly burnt, under pretence that among the 
newspapers and pamphlets contained in it, there were 
some of an insurrectionary character. 

At Richmond a bookseller received a box of books 
containing copies of a certain work compiled by a 



IN AMERICA. 95 

Virginia clergyman, to aid the Colonization Society. 
It was principally made up of extracts from speeches 
delivered in the Virginia House of Delegates in favor 
of a project for the gradual abolition of slavery by 
shipping off the slaves to Africa, broached shortly 
after the Southampton insurrection. This book was 
denounced as incendiary by the Richmond Com- 
mittee of Safety, and by their order all the copies 
were delivered up, and burnt in the public square. 

In the District of Columbia an unlucky botanist 
happened to have among his papers used for the pre- 
servation of plants, some copies of a prohibited news- 
paper. He was arrested, almost torn in pieces by the 
mob, thrown into prison where he lay upwards of six 
months, and it was with great difficulty that his ac- 
quittal was obtained. 

It is a curious fact that at the very moment at 
which the Richmond Whig was assailing Louis 
Phillippe and his ministers for their restrictions upon 
the French press, the Joiirncd des Debats was defend- 
ing those restrictions by the example of Virginia ! It 
must be confessed that the French restrictions are per- 
fect liberty, compared with the law and practice of ■ 
the southern states. 

The Secret Tribunal of Venice, which received anon- 
ymous accusations, and which proceeded to judgment 
without notice given to the culprit, has been always 
denounced as an institution the most hostile to liberty 
that can possibly be imagined. Tribunals very simi- 
lar, and in many respects much more to be dreaded, 
exist throughout almost the whole of the slave-holding 
states. They pervade the country and hold all the 
citizens in awe. The punishments inflicted are of the 
most dreaded kind,— death by the gallows or a slow 
fire, banishment, scourging, tar and feathers. This 
jurisdiction is known as Lynch law, and the accusers, 
judges and executioners are generally the same per- 
sons. As was the case with the Secret Tribunal, it 
confines itself principally to state crimes, that is, to 
such actions as are supposed to have a tendency to 



96 DESPOTISM 

overthrow the existing system of despotism. This 
system of Lynch law which sprung into existence 
among the barbarous settlers of the backwoods, where 
no law existed, and which was invented by them as 
a substitute for law, has of late been introduced into 
the oldest and most civilized of the slave states, and 
has been made to supersede the regular administration 
of justice in a variety of the most serious and im- 
portant cases. The terror of this tribunal is sufficient 
to preserve a dead silence at the South, and to pro- 
duce an apparent unanimity of opinion. There are 
no doubt numbers who still entertain the opinions of 
Washington, of Henry, and of Jefferson upon the sub- 
ject of slavery ; but no one dares in public or in private 
to utter those opinions. No one known or suspected 
to be an abolitionist, — and this word at the South ob- 
tains a very extensive signification, — can reside or 
even travel in the slave states without imminent dan- 
ger. Such, under a system of despotism, is the lib- 
erty even of those called free. 



SECTION IV. 
Slavery in its influence upon Equality. 

Equality it has been stated, may be considered under 
three points of view, Political Equality^ Social Equal- 
ity, and Equality of Wealth. 

Political and social equality are essentially depend- 
ent upon equality of wealth. The truth of this ob- 
servation is confirmed by universal experience. Those 
who possess the property of a country, have always- 
succeeded in obtaining the political power. Revolu- 
tions of property have always produced political revo- 
lutions. 

Look for example to the history of England. So 



IN AMERICA. 97 

long as the wealth of that country consisted princi- 
pally in land, and that land was possessed by a few 
feudal and ecclesiastical barons, the whole political 
power of the country was in their hands. Towns 
having sprung into existence, inhabited by artisans 
and traders, whose industry created a new species of 
wealth, these towns presently attained a representa- 
tion in the national legislature. Their influence at 
first was trifling; but it has steadily increased with 
the increase of manufacturing and commercial wealth, 
till now it has become almost predominant. 

The history of France furnishes proof to the same 
point. So long as the nobility, the clergy and the 
magistrature, possessed the larger portion of property, 
they found no difliculty in maintaining their political 
superiority. But no sooner had the progress of events 
thrown a preponderancy of wealth into the hands of 
the tiers etat^ than they began to devise means for ob- 
taining political power. Hence the French Revolution ; 
which, after immense struggles, resulted in putting the 
government into the hands of the more wealthy pro- 
prietors. The unfortunate adoption of too narrow a 
basis led, in the end, to the present imperial usurpation, 
which, however, could not stand for a moment, did not 
the French property holders support it as a means of 
defence against those who have no property. 

If in the Northern States of the American Union 
there exists a degree of political equality of which 
the world offers no other example on so large a scale, 
the equal distribution of property throughout those 
states, is not less striking and remarkable. 

It is an observation as curious as it is important, 
that in countries in which industry is respectable, and 
where the fruits of labor are secure, property always 
tends towards an equal distribution. Everyman pos- 
sesses as a means of acquirement, his own labor ; and 
though there be a very considerable diflerence in the 
capacity, the industry, the good fortune of individuals, 
yet this diflerence has its limits ; and diversities of ac- 
quisition are still more limited ; for in general the in- 
9 



98 DESPOTISM 

dustry of the rich man is relaxed ; he is more inchned 
to spend than to accumulate; while the poor man is 
still stimulated by the desire of acquisition. 

It appears then that in civilized communities, the 
natural tendency of things is towards equality. In- 
equality can only be maintained by artificial means ; 
by laws which give to some individuals exclusive ad- 
vantages not possessed by others, such as laws of 
primogeniture, of entail, laws conferring hereditary 
rights and privileges; laws creating monopolies of 
any and every kind. 

If pohtical equality be dependent upon equality of 
wealth, social equality is equally dependent upon it. 
Social distinctions which appear to spring from other 
sources, rise in fact from this, and by means of this 
are kept m activity. Blood and family are esteemed 
of great importance, and according to a vulgar notion 
which we hear every day repeated, are said to aflbrd 
a much nobler and more respectable aristocracy, than 
that of mere wealth. But the founder of every noble 
family was first rich before he became noble. It is 
his wealth transmitted to his descendants to which 
they are principally indebted for distinction. When 
they become poor they soon fall into contempt. This 
is so well understood that whenever a Marlborough or 
a WeUington is raised to the highest rank of the peer- 
age for services or supposed services rendered to his 
country, an estate is bestowed by parliament, to ac- 
company the titte. 

Equality in general, may be resolved into equality 
of wealth. All depends upon that. 

Now it is a fact clear and indisputable, that the ex- 
istence of slavery in a country, is the surest and most 
inevitable means of producing and maintaining an 
inequality of wealth. This is not said with any re- 
ference to the unprivileged class, who are to be regard- 
ed in this view not as men, but merely as things. 
Reference is had only to the free. Slavery necessarily 
produces a great inequality of wealth among the free. 

The method of this operation is obvious. The la- 



IN AMERICA. 99 

bor of each individual, is as we have seen, the natural 
and original source of individual wealth. But when 
a man is enabled to possess himself of the fruits pro- 
duced by the labor of a large number of individuals, 
to whom he is not obliged to make any compeiisation 
beyond a bare support^ his wealth tends to increase in 
a vast and disproportionate ratio, over the wealth of 
that individual who relies solely upon his own labor. 

Moreover slaves are a sort of property much less 
valuable when held in small portions, than when pos- 
sessed in masses. Where four or five hundred slaves 
are owned together, the doctrine of chances may be 
applied to the numerous casualties to which this kind 
of property is liable. The average annual loss and 
gain under ordinary circumstances will be pretty regu- 
lar, and may be made a subject of calculation. But 
the owner of only four or five slaves may at any time 
lose them all by a sudden disorder. They may all be 
taken sick at the same time, and the crop may perish 
for want of hands to tend it. They may all run 
away together. The income expected from them is 
thus liable to fail entirely, and the poor man is con- 
stantly thrown back in his attempts to accumulate, by 
the necessity he is under of investing his gains, or a 
considerable part of them, in a species of property 
which when possessed in small quantities, is peculiar- 
ly insecure.^ 

But there is another effect of the existence of slav- 
ery in a community, much more extensive and power- 
ful in its operation. Wherever slavery exists, la- 
bor comes to share the degradation and contempt of 
servitude, while idleness is regarded as the peculiar 
badge of freedom. But when idleness is general, the 
great mass of the community must inevitably be poor. 
In every country the number of those who inherit 
any considerable' portion of wealth, is small. Per- 
sonal industry is the only resource of the great bulk 
of the citizens. Where labor is honorable, it proves 

* See Chapter TIL Sec. II. for additional and important reasons of 
the tendency of slave-holding property to accumulate in a few hands. 



100 DESPOTISM 

to the prudent and industrious, a resource sufficient 
not only for support, but for the accumulation of 
wealth. When labor is not honorable, the mass of the 
citizens rather than degrade themsel\^es by submitting 
to it, will be content with the merest subsistence. 
Thus it happens that in countries in which slavery 
has existed for a considerable length of time, the citi- 
zens are divided into two classes, of which the first 
and much the smaller, comprises a few rich proprie- 
tors who at the same time are large slave-holders, 
while the second class contains the great mass of the 
free people, persons of little property, or none at all. 

This was the state of society in all the republics of 
ancient Greece. Those republics were constantly di- 
vided into two parties or factions. The oligarchical or 
aristocratic party, composed of the few rich and their 
immediate connections and dependents, and the demo- 
cratic party, as it was called, composed of the bulk of 
poor freemen, headed and led on by some ambitious 
deserter from the aristocratic ranks. The history of 
ancient Greece consists for the most part, in the mu- 
tual struggle of these two parties. In general, the 
aristocratic party had the ascendency ; when tbe op- 
posite faction came into power, it was only by a sort 
of accident commonly of very limited duration. 

This serves to explain a curious part of ancient his- 
tory, to which we have no parallel in modern times, 
namely, the frequent projects for an artificial distri- 
bution of property, and of laws for the remission of 
debts. It was clearly perceived by many politicians 
of antiquity, that a certain equality of wealth was 
absolutely essential to political equality. They saw 
that the nominal equality of all the citizens amounted 
to but little, so long as all the wealth of the state was 
possessed by a few, and the great bulk of the citizens 
not only had nothing, but were even deeply in debt to 
the few rich. Hence the various projects for abolish- 
ing debts, prohibiting usury, limiting the amount of 
property which any individual might possess, and 
making new and equal distributions of existing wealth. 



IN AMERICA. 101 

But these schemes did not touch the root of the evil. 
So long as slavery existed, it was a natural and inev- 
itable consequence that all property, however equally 
it might at first be divided, should presently concen- 
trate in the hands of a few, leaving the mass, idle and 
poor, — poor, because idle. 

The operation of the same cause is very evident 
in the history of the Roman Republic. A few patri- 
cians were possessed of enormous wealth, counting 
their slaves by tens of thousands, and owning almost 
entire provinces, while the great bulk of the citizens 
were in a state of the most deplorable poverty, depend- 
ing for their support upon distributions of corn from 
the public granaries, upon gratuities bestowed upon 
the commonality by the ambitious rich, and on the 
pay and plunder of the military service. 

Such are some of the instances which history af- 
fords, of the natural effect of slavery in concentrating 
wealth in a few hands, and in reducing the mass of 
the free to poverty and political degradation. His- 
tory also furnishes instances of the contrary process, 
by which liberty has given a spring to industry, and 
has thus operated to disseminate wealth, and to create 
an intermediate body between the rich and the poor, 
a body which with the increase of civilization and 
knowledge, is destined perhaps to embrace the great 
mass of mankind. About the tenth century of the 
christian era the greater part of Europe was reduced 
by a combination of causes, to a most barbarous con- 
dition. A few great lords, who were in fact little bet- 
ter than so many Tartar or African chiefs of the pre- 
sent day, possessed all the land, the only sort of pro- 
perty v/hich remained in existence. This land was 
cultivated by slaves. The mass of the free population 
depended for its support upon the bounty of the feudal 
chiefs, which bounty was repaid by the constant at- 
tendance and warlike services of those who received 
it. The sole occupation of the free was, hunting and 
war. 

In this state of things we can discover no element 
q% 



102 DESPOTISM 

of social improvement. What then has changed the 
condition of Europe to the state of comparative ad- 
vancement in which we now see it? A few serfs 
flying from the tyranny of their lords, founded here 
and there, a little settlement. They built walls to 
protect themselves from feudal aggression. In many 
cases they resorted to some ancient city, a remnant of 
former times, dwindled to a ruin, but which their in- 
dustry helped to repair, and their courage to defend. 
They applied themselves to the mechanic arts and to 
trade. Gradually they amassed wealth. In these 
cities slavery was not tolerated, and the serfs of the 
neighborhood found first protection, and presently 
citizenship. These cities thus founded and thus built 
up, are the origin of that great class of merchants, 
manufacturers, and industrious men, to whom Europe 
is indebted for its present advancement, and on whom 
its future hopes depend. 

The same tendency of servitude to produce great 
inequalities of condition among the free is as visible 
in the history of America as of Europe. The insur- 
rection of the slaves of St. Domingo had for its imme- 
diate occasion a violent quarrel between the white 
and the mulatto slave-holders of the island. While 
these two factions of the free were engaged in a bloody 
contest on the question of political equality, the slaves 
seized the opportunity to reclaim their liberties. 

Slavery produces the same effects in the southern 
states of the American union, which it ever has pro- 
duced in all the world beside. Several cases have 
hitherto operated to retard, or to disguise these effects, 
but they are becoming every day more and more 
visible. 

The poor whites of the old slave states have hitherto 
found a resource in emigration. All of them who had 
any spirit of enterprise and industry have quitted a 
home where labor was disgraceful, and in the wide 
regions beyond the mountains have attained a com- 
fortable livelihood, and have amassed wealth by means 
which however innocent or laudable, thc^v could not 



IN AMERICA. 103 

employ in the places where they were born, without 
a certain degree of self-abasement. But by a fatal 
oversight, a most disastrous ignorance, they omitted 
to exchide that great source of evil, the bitter effects 
of which they had experienced in their own persons ; 
and that same train of causes is now in full operation 
in Kentucky and Tennessee, Missouri and Arkansas, 
which drove the original settlers of those states from 
Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. 

As to the southwestern states, they ofler no re- 
sources to the poor whites. The cultivation of cotton 
has attracted thither, and still continues to attract, a 
host of slave-masters, and whole gangs of slaves. No 
man can emigrate to those states who expects to live by 
the labor of his hands, unless he is prepared to brave 
that very ignominy, and to plunge anew into that very 
social condition which makes him uneasy, and cuts 
him off from all chance of advancement at home. 

Political parties in the slave-holding states, within 
a few years past, have begun to assume an aspect en- 
tirely new, and one V\rhich gives fearful omen that 
these slave-holding republics are about to follow in 
the career of those ancient states, whose policy was 
founded, like theirs, upon a system of slavery. There 
is already, throughout most or all of the slave-holding 
states, an aristocratic party, and a party which calls 
itself democratic. The aristocratic party is composed 
of the rich planters, and of those whom their wealth 
enables them to influence and control. The demo- 
cratic party, so called, is composed in a great measure 
of the poo?^ ivhite folks, with a sprinkling of ambitious 
aristocrats for leaders. This miscalled democratic 
party, — for it is in fact only a faction of the white 
aristocracy, — by the natural operation of the slave- 
holding system, is rapidly increasiiig in numbers, and 
with the 'increase of its numbers, the social degrada- 
tion and the destitution of its members will also in- 
crease. Measures of enhghtened policy are hardly to 
be expected from such a party, even if it could obtain 
power and keep it, which indeed is hardly to be ex- 



104 DESPOTISM 

pected. Such is the force of habit, the power of preju- 
dice, the invincible stupidity of ignorance that these 
people seem incapable of perceiving the real cause 
of their own degradation. They are apparently as 
much attached to slavery and are as ardent in its 
support as is the aristocratic party, thus regarding 
with a blind and fatal reverence those very institu- 
tions which crush them to the dust. The influence, 
however, of such a party, composed of men, poor, 
degraded; ignorant and ferocious, and headed by some 
desperate Catiline of the aristocracy, may at times, 
prove extremely disastrous, not to the southern states 
alone, but to the whole union. 



SECTION V. 
Education in the Slave-holding States. 

That the state ought to provide for all its citizens 
the means of at least that primary education which 
consists in the knowledge of reading and writing, has 
come to be a political maxim generally acted upon in 
all civilized communities. Even such despotic gov- 
ernments as Austria and Prussia have admitted this 
most important article into their political code ; and 
primary instruction is provided by those governments 
for all the people at the public expense. This shows 
the progress which the idea of equality has lately 
made ; for equality of knowledge is a most essential 
part of political and social equality. 

The despotisms existing in the southern states of 
the American Union, are almost wholly regardless of 
this important political duty of general education. 
We have already seen that so far as regards the un- 
privileged class, the attempt to impart any instruction 
to them, so far from being considered a duty, is de- 



IN AMERICA. 105 

noimced as a crime. There are also obvious reasons 
why no general public provision for the education of 
the privileged class has ever been established. 

The privileged class consists, as we have seen, of 
an oligarchy of rich planters, and a comparatively 
large body of persons with little or no property. The 
rich planters know the value of education, and their 
wealth enables them to secure it for their own children 
by the employment of private tutors, or by sending 
them to schools and colleges at the North. The poor 
whites, bred up m ignorance, have no adequate idea 
of the value of knowledge, or of the importance of its 
diffusion. The rich planters have no inclination to 
tax themselves for the benefit of their poor neighbors. 
Their wealth, education and influence, enables them 
to control the legislation of their respective states ; 
and perhaps they imagine that they shall best secure 
their own importance and political power, by keeping 
the mass of the free population in ignorance. The 
same stroke of policy which they play off against their 
slaves, they play off also against their poorer fellow 
citizens. 

What has been done in a public way for the ad- 
vancement of education in the southern states, has 
consisted almost entirely in the establishment of col- 
leges, — institutions of but little use to the mass of the 
population, and which are almost exclusively fre- 
quented by the sons of the rich planters. For this 
purpose money has been liberally appropriated. 

It is true that in Virginia, South Carolina, and per- 
haps in some other of the slave-holding states, a trifling 
sum is annually appropriated expressly for the educa- 
tion of poor children. But the very form of this ap- 
propriation, which extorts from those who wish to 
avail themselves of it, a humihating confession of 
poverty, is an insult to those for whose benefit it is 
intended. That aid which might be justly demanded 
as a right, is made to assume the character of a charity. 
Besides, the amount of these appropriations is so small, 
and their management is so miserable, that little or no 
benefit results. 



106 DESPOTISM 

/ The facts of the case then, appear to be these. Not 
/one of the slave-holding states possesses any thing like 
/ a regular system of common schools, or has made any 
provision at all worthy of notice, for disseminating 
the rudiments of education among its citizens. In- 
equality of wealth has produced, as a natural conse- 
quence, inequality of knowledge. 

This condition of things tends greatly to aggra- 
vate the social and political inequalities which pre- 
vail throughout the southern states. It is in vain 
that people who cannot read, boast of their political 
rights. There is no power more easily abused for the 
promotion of private ends, than the power conferred 
by superior knowledge. A man Avho cannot read, 
may be said to be pohtically blind. Those who see 
may miss the way, but the blind have hardly a chance 
to find it. Nothing is more easy than leading them 
into the pit, and thus making them the instruments 
of their own destruction. It is the extreme ignorance 
of those who compose what is called the democratic 
party at the South, which incapacitates that party 
from projecting and carrying through any real and 
useful reforms in the social polity of those states, and 
which converts it into the mere tool and stepping-stone 
of artful and ambitious men, who insinuate them- 
selves into its confidence, and then employ that con- 
fidence for the accomplishment of their merely private 
ends. In the nature of things, the aristocracy of rich 
planters, as they possess all the wealth and all the 
knowledge, will succeed, in the long run, in usurping 
the whole political power. As might be expected, 
South Carolina, the state in which slavery is most 
predominant, is also the state in which the aristocracy 
of rich planters domineers without control. Already 
the doctrine, sanctioned by the constitution of that 
state, that every freeman is entitled to vote at elec- 
tions, is violently assailed by the leaders of the aris- 
tocratic faction. They insist upon a property quahfi- 
cation. It is easy to see whither this doctrine will 
lead. By the concentration of wealth in few hands, 



IN AMERICA. 107 

which is the natural result' of slavery, the number of 
those who possess the requisite qualifications will 
continue to diminish, till at last the whole political 
power concentrates in form, as it now does in fact, 
in the hands of a little oligarchy of rich slave-holders. 
But though the equality secured to all freemen by 
the constitutions of the slave-holding states, is little 
more than nominal, though the few wealthy and well 
informed generally succeed in obtaining the political 
control, and then employ it to promote their own pri- 
vate ends, it is not, therefore, to be hastily concluded 
that the constitutional rights of the poor freemen are 
valueless, or that the loss of those rights with v/hich 
they are threatened, is not a thing to be most seriously 
deprecated. Having a vote at elections, every free- 
man, however humble his condition, is sure of being 
treated with a certain degree of respect. If the mass 
of the people are cajoled out of their votes, they still 
receive for them a so*rt of equivalent, in kind words 
and fair speeches. Let them be deprived of this title 
to consideration, and the native insolence of power 
would soon display itself, and they would be trampled 
under foot v/ith the same remorseless violence now 
exercised upon the free blacks and the slaves. 



SECTION VI. 

Tlie militarij strength of the Slave- holding States. 

The military strength of states has ever been es- 
teemed of the highest importance in a pohtical point 
of view; since it is upon their military strength that 
states are often obliged to depend for their defence 
against internal, as well as external foes. In this 
particular the slave-holding states of the South pre- 
sent an aspect of extreme weakness. 



108 DESPOTISM 

When all the inhabitants of a country have arms 
in their hands, and are ready and zealous to meet and 
repulse any invader, the military strength of a coun- 
try may be said to be at the highest pomt, for experi- 
ence has abundantly demonstrated how easy it is to 
transform citizens into soldiers. But those citizens 
who are capable of being transformed into soldiers 
must be principally drafted from the laborious classes 
of society. The hardy cultivators of the soil, when 
driven to the dire necessity of beating their plough 
shares into swords, have ever furnished the best and 
most patriotic soldiers, — soldiers, who after repulsing 
the hostile invader, have willingly resumed again the 
useful labors of their former calling. Men of this class 
composed those armies of the revolution to whose cour- 
age, fortitude and patient spirit of endurance, we are 
indebted for our national independence. 

But in the slave states, these cultivators of the earth, 
these very men upon whom reliance ought to be prin- 
cipally placed in the hour of danger, would in that 
hour, be regarded with more dread and terror even 
than the invaders themselves. In case of a threaten- 
ed invasion, so far from aiding in the defence of the 
country, they would create a powerful diversion in 
favor of the enemy. 

When the French, in the first years of the revolu- 
tion, marched into the neighboring countries proclaim- 
ing "liberty and equality," they were received with 
such good-will on the part of the inhabitants as en- 
sured a speedy triumph, notwithstanding the superior 
force arrayed to resist their progress. The events of 
those wars placed in a strong light, the fact obvious 
enough in itself, but which had not then attracted 
sufficient attention, that the inchnation of the inhab- 
itants of a country is much more apt to decide its fate, 
than the strength of armies in the field. When half 
the inhabitants of a country wish success to invaders, 
it is not easy to resist them. 

Considering the odious light in which slavery is 
now regarded by all civilized nations, it is not likely, 



IN AMERICA. 109 

in case the United States became involved in war 
with any people of Europe, that any repugnance would 
be felt on the part of the hostile state, in seeking aid 
at the hands of the slaves. A lodgement being effect- 
ed upon some part of the Southern coast, by an army 
of respectable strength, and emancipation being pro- 
mised to all such slaves as would join the invaders, a 
force would soon be accumulated which the unassist- 
ed efforts of the slave-holding states would find it im- 
possible to resist. If the invaders were expelled it 
would only be by troops marched from the North. In 
such a crisis the fear of outbreaks on their own plant- 
ations would keep the planters at home; or if they 
assembled in force to resist the invaders, their absence 
would be likely to produce such outbreaks. When 
a servile was added to a foreign war, betv/een the 
rage of the masters and the hatred of the slaves, it 
would assume a most savage aspect. 

There exist, indeed, sufficient reasons for entertain- 
ing the belief that an experiment of this sort was 
projected during the war of 1812, and that nothing 
but the fact that Great Britain at that time had slave 
colonies of her own, prevented it from being carried 
into effect. 

The difficulty of raising troops in the slave-holding 
states is obvious from the fact, that Massachusetts 
alone furnished more soldiers to the revolutionary ar- 
mies, than all the slave-holding states united. The 
obstacles in the way of raising troops in those states, 
liave greatly increased since that time. 

The military v/eakness of a slave-holding commu- 
nity was strikingly illustrated in the capture of the 
city of Washington by the British in 1814. Could 
such an army have marched such a distance, and ef- 
fected such destruction in any of the free states 1 To 
that question let Concord and Lexington reply. Had 
the slaves of those counties through which the British 
army marched, been free citizens, had not Washing- 
ton itself been a slave market, the British troops would 
never have arrived within sight of the capitol. 
10 



110 DESPOTISM 

Should the slave-holding states become involved in 
a war, which it would be necessary for them to pro- 
secute from their own resources, they would be oblig- 
ed to depend upon a standing army levied from among 
the dregs of the population. Such an army would be 
likely to become quite as much an object of terror to 
those for whose defence it would be levied, as to those 
against whom it would be raised. It would not be 
easy to disband an army composed of men destitute 
of every other resource, but who had found in mil- 
itary service a means of hving at the expense of 
others. It would be insisted, and with some show of 
justice too, that the country was bound to maintain 
and provide for those to whom it v/as indebted for de- 
fence and even existence. 

One other observation will place the military weak- 
ness of the slave-holding states in a clear point of 
view. They are dependent for all manufactured arti- 
cles upon foreign supply. Even the very tools with 
which the plantations are cultivated, are furnished 
from abroad. Every article of equipment necessary 
to enable an army to take the field, must be imported, 
and unless their agricultural productions can be freely 
exported in return, they have no means whereby to 
purchase, or to pay. The coast of the slave-holding 
states is but scantily furnished with harbors ; all the 
trade of export and import, centres at a few points. 
These points may be easily blockaded by a small na- 
val force. The slave states have no facihties for 
equipping or manning a fleet. In a naval warfare, 
half a dozen of the fishing towns of New England 
might compete with the whole of them, and a strict 
blockade of their harbors for three or four years, would 
reduce the whole of the Southern States to a condi- 
tion of the greatest distress. 

In point of military strength the slave-holding states 
are not by any means all to be placed upon the same 
level. Such states as Kentucky and Tennessee where 
the proportion of slaves is small, are very strong in 
comparison with Carolina and Louisiana, where the 
unprivileged class form a rnajority of the population. 



CHAPTER THIRD. 

ECONOMICAL RESULTS OF THE SLAVE-HOLDING SYSTEM. 

SECTION I. 

Effect of Slavery upon the Sources of Wealth. 

The public wealth consists in the sum total of the 
wealth possessed by all the individual members of 
the community. Generally speaking a community is 
wealthy in proportion to the relative number of its 
members who are possessors of property. A. few very 
rich men may make a great show, and create a false 
impression as to the wealth of a community ; but a 
large number of small properties added together will 
far outrun the sum total of a few large ones. The 
pay of the officers of an army is very large compared 
with that of the rank and file ; but the sum total of 
the pay of the rank and file, far exceeds m amount 
the sum total of the pay of the officers. 

That the slave states of the American Union are 
excessively poor compared with the free states, is con- 
ceded on all hands. The slaves, forming in some of 
the states, the majority of the population, are incapa- 
ble of holding property. They are not the owners 
even of their own labor, and of course they can con- 
tribute nothing to the sum total of the public wealth. 
The class of poor whites, including a large proportion 
of the free population, are possessed of a very trifling 
property. Almost the entire capital of the country is 
in the hands of a comparatively small number of 
slave-holders ; and of the property which they possess, 
a great portion consists in the minds and muscles of 
the unprivileged class. In free communities, every 



112 DESPOTISM 

man is the proprietor of his own muscles and intel- 
lect; but as these commodities however valuable, are 
not the subject of bargain and sale in the market, they 
are not usually reckoned as property. Compare the 
tax valuations of the slave-holding states with that of 
the free states, and it will be discovered, that almost 
the only kind of property, in the usual acceptation of 
that word, which exists at the South, is, the land, and 
the buildings upon it. Exclude the slaves, and the 
amount of what is called personal property existing 
in those states, is exceedingly small ; and upon exam- 
ination it will be found to fall greatly short of the 
amount of debt always due to the North and to Eu- 
rope. 

In estimating the actual wealth of the slave-hold- 
ing states, the amount of this debt ought always to be 
taken into account. A great part of the banking capi- 
tal of those states is borrowed ; and so of the money 
invested in rail-roads and other public works. A 
large proportion of the planters have beside great pri- 
vate debts of their own, secured by mortgage upon 
th^ir plantations and slaves, many of them bemg lit- 
tle better than tenants at will to some northern capi- 
talist, to whom all their property in fact belongs. 

As the Southern States possess advantages of soil 
and climate peculiar to themselves, it becomes an in- 
teresting inquiry, what is the cause of this compara- 
tive poverty ? 

1. Political economists have generally agreed that 
labor is the sole source of wealth. Whether this doc- 
trine be literally and absolutely true, may perhaps be 
doubted ; it is however beyond all doubt, that labor 
is a very principal source of value. 

The great motive to labor, the great inducement to 
exertion, that motive, that inducement which has 
raised man from the primitive barbarism of the woods 
to such degrees of refinement and civilization as have 
yet been attained, has been, expectation of reioard. 
There is in this motive a sort of creative power, which 
seems to give new strength and alacrity. It even 



IN AMERICA. 113 

possesses the capacity of making labor delightful. The 
only other motive powerful enough to overcome the 
natural indolence of man, is the fear of punishment ; 
but that is a melancholy and miserable motive which 
seems to add a new distastefulness to labor, and to 
wither up the energies of those whom it influences. 

Now with respect to the whole unprivileged class, 
that is to say the principal laboring class in the slave- 
holding states, their only motive to industry, is this 
second, this enfeebling motive, the fear of punishment. 
Their labor is compulsive and reluctant, and its results 
are proportionably small. 

With respect to the other laboring class at the south, 
to wit, the poor whites, their industry is paralyzed by 
a fatal prejudice which regards manual labor as the 
badge of a servile condition, and therefore as disgrace- 
ful, — a prejudice which not even the expectation of 
reward is strong enough to overcome. It is a preju- 
dice similar to this which has operated in no small 
degree to keep Spain in a stationary state, two centu- 
ries behind the civilization of the rest of Europe. But 
even Spain in this respect, is more fortunate than the 
American slave holding states. It is the mechanic 
arts which the Spaniards regard as derogatory, 
whereas agriculture is comparatively respectable. In 
the slave holding states of America, agricultural labor 
is the most derogatory of all, because the labor of the 
field most assimilates the condition of a freeman to 
that of a slave. Whenever such notions prevail, they 
are fatal to public prosperity. Poverty keeps pace 
with pride. 

Take the slave-holding states together, and the free 
inhabitants are about twice as numerous as the slaves. 
Yet all the great articles of production in wMch the 
wealth of the slave-holding states consists, cotton, to- 
bacco, rice, sugar and flour, are produced almost ex- 
clusively by slave labor. 

What then is the occupation of the free 1 One class, 
the larger slave-masters, contribute absolutely nothing 
to the public stock. They hardlv bestow a thought 
10* 



114 DESPOTISM 

even upon the management of their own estates. 
Their sole business is, to receive the income and to 
spend it. Another class of the free population ob- 
tain a livelihood by acting as overseers or viceroys 
for their richer neighbors. They are thus saved from 
the degradation of manual labor ; but it is a hard ser- 
vice by which they earn their bread. So hard, that it 
is very seldom performed to the satisfaction of their 
employers. The planters give a terrible character of 
the overseers as a class. According to their account, 
the overseers as a general rule, are ignorant, stupid, 
obstinate, negligent, drunken and dishonest. For 
their ignorance they are hardly to blame, considering 
what scanty means of education this class enjoy. 
Stupidity and obstinacy are the natural fruits of igno- 
rance. Neghgence and drunkenness they learn from 
their employers ; and if overseers are dishonest it is 
little to be wondered at, considering the temptations 
and opportunities by which they are surrounded, and 
the total confusion of all ideas of right and wrong, 
justice and injustice, which the nature of their employ- 
ment is likely to produce. 

The third and largest division of the privileged 
class, compelled by absolute want to the disgraceful 
necessity of manual labor, work with an unwiUing- 
ness as great as that of the slaves, and with still less 
of efficiency. The produce of their labor is very small. 
In general it is hardly sufficient to support them in 
that rude and semi-barbarous condition to which they 
have been accustomed. 

The disastrous effects of slave-holding upon free 
industry, are particularly obvious in the families of 
the small planters, and of those farmers who possess 
but five or six slaves. These slaves suffice to perform 
the labors of the farm, and when the land is fertile 
the owner of it lives in a rustic plenty. A family of 
sons grows up around him. He has no occasion for 
their assistance on the farm, and if he had, they would 
regard the labor as an intolerable disgrace. The boys 
grow up in idleness, with little or no education, be- 



IN AMERICA. 115 

cause there is no system of public instruction, and the 
father cannot afford to send them to a distance in pur- 
suit of schools. They arrive at man's estate without 
having been bred to any regular employment PJach 
has his horse, his dog and his gun ; and while the father 
lives the sons have a home ; they spend their time in 
hunting, or in riding about the country, or at horse- 
races, frolics, barbecues, or political meetings. There 
are thousands of young men in Kentucky and Tennes- 
see in this unhappy predicament. Full of spirit and 
ambition, active, capable, eager for some honorable 
employment ; but condemned by the social system of 
which they form a part, and by the unhappy prejudi- 
ces against useful industry which that system engen- 
ders, to an idleness which presently becomes as irk- 
some to themselves, as it is fatal to the public pros- 
perity. When habit has made indolence inveterate, 
and when they are too old to apply themselves with 
zeal or success to a new course of life, the death of 
the father cuts off the support they have hitherto en- 
joyed. His property divided among a numerous fam- 
ily, gives but a pittance to each. That pittance is 
soon spent. Want stares the unhappy sufferers in the 
face. They lose by degrees their standing and re- 
spectability. The weaker spirited among them sink 
down to the lowest depths of poverty and vice. Those 
of more energy emigrate to the new states of the far 
west, and having escaped the charmed circle in which 
they were so long bound up, they develop a new 
character, and like their fathers before them, by means 
of their own personal industry, they bring a farm into 
cultivation and gradually acquire wealth. But if they 
have settled in a slave state, that wealth is generally 
invested in slaves ; and their own children are bred 
up in that same style of helpless indolence of which 
they themselves were so near becoming the victims, 
and which their children perhaps will not so fortunate- 
ly escape. 

Thus it appears that one plain and obvious effect of 
the slave-holding system is, to deaden in every class 



116 DESPOTISM 

of society that spirit of industry essential to the in- 
crease of public wealth. 

2. The spirit of industry is not however alone suf- 
ficient %ox the accumulation of property. Industry 
quickens production ; but to accumulate, it is neces- 
sary not only to produce but to save. Eco7iomy then, 
may justly be regarded as the second great source of 
public wealth. 

But to expect any thing like economy from the un- 
privileged class, would be extremely ridiculous. Econ- 
omy is like industry, it is hke every other virtue, — it 
never will be exercised unless there is a motive con- 
stantly operating to produce it. Now in the condition 
of servitude no such motive exists. In fact, the mo- 
tives are all the other way. The slave receives from 
his master a certain weekly allowance of food. Any 
attempt to lay by a part of it, would be absurd, for 
as soon as a store was accumulated, the master, if he 
discovered it, would stop the allowance till that store 
was consumed; or at all events, he would immediate- 
ly diminish an allowance which experience had shown 
to be more than sufficient. It would be the same with 
respect to clothing. But why dwell upon this topic? 
Is it not plain that he who is incapable of possessing 
property is alike destitute of motives to produce or to 
save ? 

If slaves are improvident with respect to themselves, 
it is not remarkable that they are still more so with 
respect to their owners. No matter what occurs ; if 
the cotton house is on fire ; if the fences are down, 
and the cattle destroy the corn ; if the horses stray 
away ; if the tools are lost or broken ; it there hap- 
pens one or all the thousand accidents which are al- 
ways liable to diminish the value of their master's 
property, and which a little care or foresight might 
have prevented, — any or all of these occurrences are 
a matter of perfect unconcern to the slave, nor will he 
voluntarily lift a finger to prevent them. If indeed he 
has any feeling about the matter, it is rather an in- 
clination to destroy than to save. He experiences a 



IN AMERICA. 117 

secret delight, in the losses and sorrows of a master 
whom he hates. 

Nor is economy likely to be practised to any con- 
siderable extent by the hireling overseers to whom the 
management of the great plantations is intrusted. 
These overseers are frequently changed, and they 
have little or no interest in the economical manage- 
ment of th§ property intrusted to their charge. 

As little can we look to the conduct of the slave- 
masters for an^^ exhibition of the virtue now under 
consideration. It is an old observation that what 
comes easy goes easy. This saying is verified by the 
conduct of brigands, pirates, and robbers, and all 
that class of men who live upon plunder. It applies 
with equal force and for the same reason, to slave- 
masters, who generally contrive to spend all they get 
and to run into debt all they can. 

We have thus seen that with respect to the slaves 
and their ov/ners, idleness and improvidence keep 
close company. The same is the fact with respect to 
the poorer class of freemen. Though their resources be 
next to nothing, they still contrive to imitate in their 
small way, the careless extravagance of their richer 
neighbors. 

It thus appears that there is a great deficiency of 
the second principal source of pubhc wealth, to wit, 
economy, among all classes of the population of the 
slave-holding states of America. 

3. A third great source of public wealth consists in 
invetition, by which is meant, the discovery of new 
and more productive applications of industry. But to 
call this great means of increasing the productive 
power of a community into action, industry must be 
honorable. That ingenuity which busies itself in ob- 
servations and experiments for the discovery of means 
to produce the same effect with less labor, seldom 
displays itself except in communities in which the 
useful arts are held in high esteem. Even inventions 
made elsewhere, are for the most part brought into 
vtse with great difliculty, in those societies in which 



118 DESPOTISM 

men of education and reflection , if such there are, 
despise useful industry, and in which tlie great busi- 
ness of production is intrusted to ignorant and stupid 
slaves, and to overseers equally ignorant and stupid. 
Under these circumstances every thing proceeds in the 
same dull round, without change or attempt at im- 
provement. The more men know, and the more they 
reflect, the more convinced they are how limited is 
the actual extent of their progress. Ignorance is arro- 
gant, dogmatical, certain that it knows every thing 
already. The idea of improvement does not enter into 
all its thoughts. Hence it is that the early progress 
of a people from barbarism to civilization takes place 
by such hardly perceptible steps, and is subjected to 
so many hindrances and interruptions, as almost to 
discourage the most sanguine believers in human per- 
fectibility, and to have given rise to the common 
opinion that savage nations are incapable of being 
civilized ; while on the other hand, the history of our 
own age serves to show, how civilization, once set 
fairly in motion, advances with an impulse continu- 
ally accelerated, and which not even the most serious 
obstacles can long retard. 

The southern states derive no inconsiderable advan- 
tage from their close and intimate connection with the 
free states of the north, of which the social system is 
so essentially diflerent. By this means the natural 
efl'ect of the institutions of the south, are to a certain 
extent counteracted, especially in those newly settled 
states into which there has been a considerable influx 
of northern population. 



IN AMERICA. 119 



SECTION II. 



Slavery as it affects the amount of capital required 
for industrious undertakings. 

All enterprises of industry, whether agricultural, 
mechanical or mercantile, require a certain amount of 
capital for their successful prosecution. Every thing 
which enables these enterprises to be carried on with 
a less amount of capital, contributes to the increase of 
national wealth; and on the other hand, every thing 
which causes a greater amount of capital to be re- 
quired, is an obstacle in the way of all new under- 
takings. 

In free communities, where the laborers have their 
own labor at their own disposal, and where in conse- 
quence, they are ready to sell it, either by the day, 
the year, or the hour, in any quantities, that is, in 
which it may be needed, beside the fixed capital in- 
vested in lands, workshops, tools, ships, steamboats, 
&c., there are required two separate portions of floating 
capital, one to be invested in the stock to be operated 
upon, and the other to be employed in paying the 
wages of labor. But no more labor need be paid for 
than is actually employed. Whenever a smaller quan- 
tity will answer, a portion of the laborers may be dis- 
missed ; whenever m.ore is needed, more laborers may 
be employed. 

But in a slave-holding community, in addition to 
these three portions of capital, another and a very 
large portion is required, in order to commence any 
industrious enterprise whatever ; for though in such 
a community there is no payment of wages, yet a 
corresponding quantity of capital is necessary to fur- 
nish food, clothing, and medicines for the slaves. A 
fourth and additional portion of capital is also required, 
to be invested in the purchase of the laborers them- 
selves^ — a necessity which constitutes a great obstacle 
in the way of all industrious enterprises. 



120 DESPOTISM 

Take the business of agriculture for example. In 
the new cotton-growing states, a very small sum of 
money will suffice to purchase a plantation of several 
hundred acres; but a very large sum of money is 
needed to purchase the laborers necessary to carry on 
the cultivation of it. Could laborers be hired by the 
month or the day, as in free communities, a moderate 
capital would enable the planter to command the labor 
he would need, whereas, under existing circumstances, 
no person can start a new plantation in Alabama or 
Mississippi, who is not already possessed of a large 
capital, or able to command it in the shape of loans. 

We shall fall, probably, much under the mark, if 
we assume that a capital of five thousand dollars in- 
vested in hired labor, would enable as many acres to 
be cultivated, as a capital of fifty thousand dollars 
invested in slave labor. The consequence of this 
state of things is obvious. It gives a monopoly of 
the command of labor to those who are already pos- 
sessed of large means, either in the shape of property 
or of credit. Persons of small capital have no chance 
to compete with persons of large capital, because by 
this system, a large capital is rendered absolutely 
necessary to obtain that command of labor without 
which no industrious enterprise can be carried on. 
This single fact is sufficient to explain that tendency of 
the wealth of a slave community to concentrate in a few 
hands, which has been stated in a preceding chapter. 

This system not only gives a monopoly of the com- 
mand of labor to those who are already rich, but it 
is also a very wasteful and extravagant system. It 
compels the operator to purchase and to support a 
much larger number of laborers than he ordinarily 
has occasion for. He is obliged constantly to own 
and to feed the largest number ever necessary in his 
business, or else to submit, occasionally, to severe loss, 
for want of a sufficiency of labor. In the cotton 
planting business, for instance, a given number of 
slaves can cultivate a considerably larger quantity of 
cotton than they can gather in ; so that the planter is 



IN AMERICA. 121 

either obliged to submit to an annual loss of a portion 
of the crop which he has brought to maturity, or else 
to cultivate less than he otherwise might, for the sake 
of gathering all. 

The cotton crop, however, as it extends the labor 
of cultivation and gathering in, through almost the 
entire year, is less surely attended with this sort of 
loss, than are the grain crops and farm cultivation of 
the more northern slave-holding states. In those states, 
during the winter, there is comparatively little occasion 
for labor on the farms. During all that time, the capi- 
tal invested in the ownership of slaves, is unproductive, 
and the slave master is saddled in addition with the 
expense of supporting laborers, for whose services he 
has no occasion. 

What a great discouragement to the poor, that is, to 
the great mass of the free population, this system pre- 
sents, will be evident from a few considerations. In 
those parts of the slave states in which slavery pre- 
dominates, it is impossible to hire free laborers. To 
work at all, even on one's own little tract of land, is 
considered a sufficient degradation ; but to work for 
another person, to put one's self under his direction, 
seems to approach too near to the condition of slavery, 
to be at all endurable. If a person, therefore, wishes to 
employ any other labor than his own, he must have re- 
course to slave labor. But the employment of the labor 
of other people is in general absolutely essential to the 
accumulation of wealth. Where a man merely hoards 
up the profits of his own labor, his wealth increases only 
as money does when placed at simple interest, and 
the industry and economy of a long life will accumu- 
late but a moderate sum. But if those profits are in- 
vested in the employment of the labor of other people, 
his wealth then increases like money at compound 
interest. 

But when to employ other labor than one's own, it 

is necessary to buy the laborers, a considerable sum 

must be first accumulated, before it can be employed 

at all ; and as has been shown in another place, so 

U 



122 DESPOTISM 

long as the number of slaves which a person possesses, 
is small, the investment is exceedingly precarious. 

The necessity of a great capital, and the wasteful- 
ness with which that capital is employed, sufficiently 
explain the fact, why in all those occupations in which 
the industry of the free states has come into competi- 
tion with the labor of slaves, the free states have been 
able to undersell their rivals. Slave labor is only 
profitably employed in those kinds of business, such 
as the cultivation of cotton, rice, and sugar, in which 
the climate and soil of the northern states prevent 
the people of those states from engaging. In the cul- 
tivation of grain, the raising of stock, and all the 
operations of farming agriculture, the profits of the 
slave-holding cultivators are notoriously small, and 
many a large slave-holder grows poor in that same 
pursuit, which enriches the farmer of Ohio, Pennsyl- 
vania and New York, who begins life with no other 
resource than his own capacity to labor. Hence that 
heavy drain of emigration, hence that fatal domestic 
slave trade, which aggravates the poverty of the older 
of the slave states, by carrying off that labor, which 
constitutes the principal means of economical pros- 
perity. 

This same necessity for a great capital, in order to 
undertake any industrious enterprise, and the same 
necessary wastefulness in the employment of that capi- 
tal, afford also one reason among many others, why it 
has been found unprofitable to set up manufacturing 
establishments at the south. It is not only necessary 
to build your factor^^, and to buy your machinery and 
stock, but before you can commence operations, you 
must expend a still larger sum in the purchase of 
laborers. Apart from everything else, a sufficient rea- 
son for the non-establishment of manufactures at the 
South, is to be found in the fact, that at the North, the 
same annual quantity of manufactured products can 
be turned out, with the employment of much less than 
half the amount of capital, which would be necessary 
for the same purpose at the South. 



IN AMERICA. 123 

SECTION III. 

Agriculture in the Slave-holdiug States. 

If we may believe John Taylor of Caroline, the 
author of Arator^ or Mr. Ruffin, the ingenious editor 
of the Virginia Farmers^ Register^ the best agricul- 
tural periodical ever published in the United States, 
agriculture at the South does not consist so much in 
cultivating land, as in killing it. The process is as 
follows. 

A quantity of virgin soil, in those of the slave states 
in which any such soil is yet to be found, is cleared 
up every winter. The trees are cut down and burnt, 
or merely girdled, and left to decay and fall with the 
lapse of time. When tobacco is the crop, this fresh 
land is planted with tobacco each successive year till 
its fertility is exhausted. When it will no longer pro- 
duce tobacco, it is planted with corn or Avheat, till it 
^vill not afford a crop worth gathering. It is then 
turned out^ that is, left unfenced and uncultivated, to 
grow up with thickets of sassafras or persimmon 
bushes, or with forests of the short-leaved pine, — a 
majestic tree in appearance, but the timber of which 
is subject to so rapid a decay, as to be of little or no 
value. 

In the cotton-growing states, corn and cotton are 
planted alternately, till the land is completely worn 
out. When its original fertility is exhausted, no fur- 
ther attempt is made at its cultivation. It is turned 
out, and the labor of the plantation is applied to new 
fields, which presently undergo a similar fate. Thus, 
every year, a certain quantity of land is given over 
as worthless, and new inroads are made upon the 
original forest. Agriculture becomes a continual pro- 
cess of opening new fields, and abandoning the old. 

This brief account of southern agriculture, will serve 
to explain the remarkable fact, that what we should 
call improved lands, that is, lands which have been 



124 llESPOTISM 

brought into cultivation, are generally of inferior value 
and price to the adjoining wild lands which must be 
cleared up before they can be planted. Every crop 
taken from a field diminishes its value ; and as the 
number of successive crops which can be taken with- 
out reducing the land to a state of barrenness, is not 
great, the diminution in its value, is sufficiently rapid. 
This is one cause of the sparseness of population at 
the south. No planter ever thinks he has land enough. 
Knowing that he destroys a quantity every year, he 
is anxious still to enlarge his domain so as to be cer- 
tain of having a supply sufficient to meet the con- 
sumption. 

Almost the only wealth in the southern states consists 
in lands and slaves. But slaves are only valuable as 
cultivators of the soil ; and as the productive power 
of the soil diminishes, the value of slaves must decline 
with the decreasing amount which they are able to 
produce. The inevitable consequences to which this 
system of agriculture must finally lead, are sufficiently 
obvious. The soil in its whole extent, being at length 
exhausted, the slaves will hardly be able to produce 
enough for their own support. They will cease to 
possess any marketable value ; and the entire mass of 
the population will sink down into a state of misera- 
ble poverty, from which they can emerge only by a 
complete change of manners and habits, and a tho- 
rough revolution in the social system. 

Nor is this period by any means so distant as may 
at first appear. For though the superficial extent of 
the slave holding states is very great, the quantity of 
land which they affi^rd of sufficient natural fertiUty to 
admit of being cultivated according to the southern 
method, is not great. Deduct the mountains, the mo- 
rasses and the vast pine barrens, and but a moderate 
extent of land will remain, a part of which has already 
been exhausted and deserted, and all of which, with 
the exception of some alluvial tracks, along the water 
courses, is of a description not fitted long to withstand 
the destructive processes of southern agriculture. 



IN AMERICA. 125 

This progress of pauperism, presents itself under 
very different aspects, in diflerent states of the union, 
according to the antiquity of their settlement, and the 
density of their population. In the newer states, in 
which the proportion of virgin land is still very great, 
to a superficial view it is altogether non-apparent. 
Its early operation suggests nothing but ideas of pub- 
lic prosperity and increasing wealth. But there is a 
certain point where the tide turns. The spendthrift, 
so long as his money holds out, has the appearance 
and enjoys the reputation of abundant riches. It is 
only when his resources begin to fail, that the reality 
of his condition, and the true nature of his conduct 
become apparent. 

Virginia is the oldest of the slave states. All the 
rest are treading in her footsteps. From her unfortu- 
nate condition at the present moment it is easy to 
portend what theirs must presently become. Eastern 
Virginia, including all that portion of the state east of 
the Blue Ridge, presented to the original colonists, a 
most inviting country. Washed on one side by a spa- 
cious bay, into which poured numerous rivers, broad, 
deep and navigable, all the lower part of the state had 
received from the hand of nature such unusual facili- 
ties of water communication, that hardly a point could 
be found twenty miles distant from navigable waters ; 
and for the most part, every plantation had its land- 
ing place. These numerous rivers Avere stored and 
still continue to be stored with such an abundance of 
fish, fowl and oysters as might alone sufiice to support 
a numerous population. Above the falls of the rivers 
was a hilly diversified country, generally rich, and if 
it had some barren tracts, aftbrding spots of the most 
exuberant fertility. 

When Eastern Virginia first began to be settled^ it 
afforded beyond all question, the richest and most 
desirable country any where to be found along the 
Atlantic coast of the union. 

The cultivation of tobacco soon became so profita- 
ble, that the more industrious of the colonists grew 
11# 



126 DESPOTISM 

rich by it. Most unfortunately they invested these 
profits in the purchase of slaves from Africa. The 
introduction of slave labor presently proved fatal to 
the industry of the free. But this circumstance was 
little thought of or regarded, so long as the tobacco 
cultivation continued to increase, and to bring in rich 
returns. The wealthier planters rose to the condition 
of nabobs. They extended their plantations, increas- 
ed the number of their slaves, and spent freely the 
large incomes which their estates produced. The 
apparent wealth and prosperity of the country was 
very great. 

By degrees, the entire surface in the older portions 
of the state had been cleared, planted and exhausted. 
Tobacco requires a rich soil, and the impoverished 
land would no longer produce it. It became neces- 
sary to abandon this species of cultivation, first in the 
tide- water districts, and afterwards in all that portion 
of the state north of the James River. The culture of 
tobacco in Virginia is now confined, for the most part, 
to a few of the southern counties, in the vicinity of the 
Blue Ridge, in which some virgin land is still to be 
found. 

The cultivation of grain succeeded to that of tobac- 
co. These crops were far less profitable; but even 
these, when taken in constant succession from the 
same soil, are scarcely less exhausting. The lands 
have continued to deteriorate till large tracts have been 
abandoned as absolutely worthless. Meantime, a 
constant stream of emigration has been pouring out 
of Virginia. It was first directed to Kentucky, and 
the states north-west of the Ohio. It then consisted of 
the poorer portions of the Avhite population, who were 
the first to suffer from the general decline. This emi- 
gration is now directed towards the cotton growing 
states of the south-west. It is greater than ever, and 
embraces the wealthiest men and the largest slave-hold- 
ers, who find that slave property, which is valueless 
in Virginia, except as an article of exportation, can be 
put to profitable use in the cultivation of cotton. The 



IN AMERICA. 127 

domestic slave-trade produces another equally serious 
drain upon the population of Eastern Virginia. In 
default of crops, the planters have no other means to 
meet their expenses, except selling their slaves. This 
affords a momentary relief, but it is fatal to the per- 
manent prosperity of the country, which in losing its 
laboring men, in losing its cultivators, loses the only 
means whereby it can recover from its present decline. 

That part of Virginia which lies upon tide waters, 
presents an aspect of universal decay. Its population 
diminishes, and it sinks day by day, into a lower 
depth of exhaustion and poverty. The country be- 
tween tide waters and the Blue Ridge is fast passing 
into the same condition. Mount Vernon is a'^ desert 
waste ; Monticello is little better ; and the same cir- 
cumstances which have desolated the lands of Wash- 
ington and Jefferson, have impoverished every plant- 
er in the state. Hardly any have escaped save the 
owners of the rich bottom lands along James River, 
the fertility of which it seems difficult utterly to destroy. 

This thriftless system of cultivation, which consists 
in exhausting a field and then abandoning it, prevail- 
ed originally in the more northern states as well as in 
Virginia. So long as the quantity of new land ap- 
peared inexhaustible, this method of culture was a 
natural and profitable operation, and it was continued 
by habit long after its bad policy became apparent. 
Soon after the close of the revolutionary war the same 
symptoms of exhausted fertility which begun to show 
themselves in Virginia, made their appearance also in 
the more northern states. The farmers presently 
became fully sensible- of the ruinous course they were 
pursuing, and the more intelligent began to turn their 
attention towards an improved method of cultivation. 
The custom of manuring, introduced by degrees, is 
now considered in all the older parts of the country, 
an essential part of husbandry. A proper rotation of 
crops is very generally attended to, and at present it 
is well understood, that lands under a proper system 
of cultivation ought to increase rather than decline 



128 DESPOTISM 

in fertility. In fact, within the last twenty years so 
great has been the improvement in agriculture in the 
older portions of the northern states, that the face of 
the country has assumed a new aspect, and large tracts 
which were formerly considered as naturally barren, 
and worthless, have been transformed into fertile and 
productive farms. Improvements in culture keep pace 
with increase of population, and the soil, instead of 
being constantly deteriorated, is constantly increasing 
in productiveness and value. 

Some patriotic citizens of Virginia have from time 
to time made great exertions to promote in their own 
state, an emulation of these northern improvements. 
But their well-intended efforts have utterly failed. In- 
deed they are opposed by irresistible obstacles. In the 
free states the land is portioned out into small farms, 
tilled by the hands of the owners, whose attention is 
exclusively bestowed upon the business of agriculture. 
There is a certain portion of intellect devoted to the 
improvement of every hundred acres. In Virginia the 
land is held for the most part in portions ten or twenty 
times larger, and even were the owners zealous for im- 
provement, on farms so large that same careful over- 
sight and attention could not be bestowed on every 
part. But then the owners of the land will not give 
their attention to the matter. It is contrary to the 
whole tenor of their habits, taste and education. They 
have slaves, and can hire an overseer. Why should 
they plague themselves with the details of a business 
which they do not like, and do not understand? 

From the overseer and the slaves, as they have no 
interest in improvement, of course nothing is to be ex- 
pected. In fact it is the obvious interest of the over- 
seer to scourge as much out of the plantation as pos- 
sible, without the slightest regard to future conse- 
quences, especially if he is paid, as overseers often are, 
by a portion of the crop. 

But there are obstacles, to be encountered still more 
serious than these. Improvements cannot be made 
except by the expenditure of a certain portion of capi- 



IN AMERICA. 129 

tal upon the land. Either additional slaves mnst be 
purchased, or else a certain portion of the labor now 
employed in producing a small crop, must be diverted 
from immediate production, and employed in opera- 
tions undertaken with a view to distant retiu'ns. But 
this is an expenditure which the greater number of 
planters cannot afford. As it is, with all their slaves 
employed in scourging out of the land the greatest 
immediate produce, their expenses exceed their in- 
comes, and they are running into debt every year. 
They are in no condition to risk the loss or curtail- 
ment of a single crop by changing the established 
method of cultivation, and attempting the introduc- 
tion of improvements. 

More yet, it is positively bad economy for a Virginia 
planter to undertake the improvement of his estate. 
Labor is the only means of resuscitating the exhausted 
lands of Virginia. Slave labor is the only kind of la- 
bor which in the present condition of things can be 
employed for that purpose. But in the slave market, 
the Virginia planter, even though he has money at 
command — which is a case sufficiently unusual, — can- 
not afford to compete with the slave traders from the 
South west. The profits which he can possibly derive 
from slave labor will not v/arrant him in paying so 
high a price. Of course he does not purchase: the 
slaves are driven off to be employed upon cotton plant- 
ations, while the lands of Virginia are left unimprov- 
ed, and still declining in value. Even as regards the 
labor of slaves already in the planter's possession, it is 
a much more profitable operation to emigrate with 
these slaves to Mississippi or Louisiana, and there to 
employ their labor in raising cotton, and killing land, 
than to attempt the improvement of the worn out 
lands at home. 

That high price of slaves in the south western mar- 
ket, which the Virginians regard as a fortunate addi- 
tion to their diminishing resources, is likely to prove 
m its ultimate results, the greatest curse with which 
the state could be visited. If it were not for the do- 



130 DESPOTISM 

mestic slave trade, slaves would scarcely have an ex- 
changeable value in Virginia; the great cheapness of 
labor would facilitate agricultural improvements, and 
the total impossibility of going on any longer in the 
old way, would lead to important changes in the ex- 
isting system. As it is, the laboring population of the 
country, that population upon which all its wealth 
and consequence depends, is daily drained away. The 
state is bleeding at every pore, and a fatal lethargy 
must be the consequence. The richest soil, the most 
exuberant fertility without labor is luiproductive and 
worthless. What will be the condition of a state 
which has sold to the slave traders, the only laborious 
part of her population, whose most enterprising citi- 
zens have deserted their homes, and whose exhaust- 
ed lands hold out no temptation to emigrants from 
abroad ? 

In addition to the obstacles already pointed out in 
the way of agricultural improvement at the South, 
there is one yet to be mentioned, of a still more per- 
manent and decisive nature. It is a well established 
doctrine, that a rotation of crops, a variety and a very 
considerable variety in the articles cultivated, is es- 
sential to a highly improved state of agricidture. But 
such a rotation and variety is impossible in a country 
which is exclusively agricultural, and which must 
necessarily confine itself to some crops that will pay 
the expense of distant transportation. The number 
of these crops is exceedingly few, and they are all of a 
very exhausting character. The greater number of 
vegetable productions are only of use to be consumed 
on the spot ; and such a consumption cannot take 
place to any considerable extent, except there be in 
the neighborhood a manufacturing population to take 
off the extra supply. Agricultural improvements have 
ever kept pace with the extension of manufacturing 
industry. The reasons have been already given why 
the creation of a manufacturing population under 
existing circumstances, is impossible at the south, and 
that subject will be further considered in the follow- 
ing section. 



IN AMERICA. 131 

The condition of agriculture in Eastern Virginia, 
is in a greater or less degree its condition in Mary- 
land, in North Carolina, in South Carolina, and in the 
older parts of Georgia. In the two latter states the 
cultivation of cotton has' been attended by conse- 
quences exactly similar to those produced in Virginia, 
by the culture of tobacco. After pouring in upon 
those states a momentary flood of wealth, which glit- 
tered and disappeared, it has left the soil in a state of 
exhaustion and barrenness, for which no present reme- 
dy appears. 

The south-western states, Alabama, Mississippi and 
Louisiana are now the El Dorado of the slave-holders. 
In those states, cotton at present prices is a very pro- 
fitable crop. The demand for slaves is brisk. Good 
field hands sell for nine hundred, or ten hundred dol- 
lars. The slaves of Maryland, Virginia and North 
Carolina are purchased up in droves for this market, 
and numbers equally large are moved ofi" to the south- 
west by emigrating planters. But these slaves, if they 
are lucratively employed in cultivating cotton, are 
employed at the same time, in killing land. Slavery 
will presently visit the south-west with the same blight 
of exhaustion and barrenness, which has already 
alighted upon Virginia and the Carolinas. In propor- 
tion to the rapidity with which the apparent immedi- 
ate prosperity of the soutli-western states is now ad- 
vancing, will be hastened the era of their decay. 

In the free states of the Union, the wealth of the 
west promotes the wealth of the east. The more 
prosperous are the new states, the more prosperous 
are the old. At the south it is not so. The new 
states are aggrandized at the expense of the old 
ones. But this aggrandizement has nothing in it, 
solid or permanent. For a short time a great annual 
income is obtained ; but it is obtained only by the an- 
nual consumption of a portion of that natural fertility, 
in which consists the only real capital of those com- 
munities, and this capital being presently exhausted, 
their short lived prosperity vanishes like a shadow. 



132 DESPOTISM 



SECTION IV. 

Manufactures and Commerce in the Slave-holding 

States. 

No merely agricultural nation ever yet attained a 
high degree of prosperity, or civilization. To attain 
that result it is necessary that manufacturing and 
commercial industry should combine with agriculture. 
All these three branches of industry are so sympathet- 
ically connected, that neither of them alone can be 
carried to any great degree of perfection. 

There have already been suggested several reasons 
why manufactures cannot prosper in the slave-holding 
states. It is necessary here to recapitulate them and 
to bring them together in a single point of view. 

1. Skill in the greater part of the mechanic and 
manufacturing arts, is not consistent with the state of 
total ignorance and barbarism in which it is judged 
the best policy that the unprivileged class should be 
kept. Skilled laborers are and must be, more intel- 
ligent and better informed, than those of an ordinary 
kind. 

2. Such skill is still less consistent with that social 
condition which deprives those subjected to it, of all 
motive to acquire that degree of expertness, on which 
the success of most mechanical operations so essen- 
tially depends. 

3. With respect to the laboring part of the free pop- 
ulation, the acquisition of manufacturing skill is little 
to be expected from the state of ignorance, indolence 
and depression which are to them the natural results 
of the existence of slavery in the community of which 
they form a part. 

These three reasons go to cut off the supply of that 
kind of labor essential to the prosecution of manufac- 
turing operations. But besides labor, there is needed 
knowledge, tact, skill and judgment in the oversight 
and direction of labor, and capital to set it m operation. 



IN AMERICA. 133 

1. With regard to the oversight and direction of 
manufacturing operations, persons are very rarely to 
be found among the native population of the southern 
states, possessed of the necessary quahfications. The 
whole course of their education and habits is averse to 
that system of order, economy, and minute and exact 
attention, which such a business requires. 

2. As regards capital, it has been shown in a pre- 
vious section, under what disadvantages all industri- 
ous operations labor at the south, from the compara- 
tively large amount of it, necessary to set them in ope- 
ration. In any manufacturing business for example, it 
is necessary to have capital enough over and above all 
that is required for the fixtures and stock, to purchase 
the laborers who are to carry it on. 

From the combined operation of these several causes 
it results, both in theory and in fact, that manufac- 
turing processes, on any large scale, are almost un- 
known at the south, and that even the commonest me- 
chanical arts are at a very low ebb. 

It is obvious at once, when the condition of the 
various classes of the population at the south is con- 
sidered, and when regard is had to the state of marm- 
factures, that trade cannot, greatly flourish. The un- 
privileged class have nothing to sell except what they 
steal, and of course they have but little to buy. The 
laboring freemen, produce but little, and of course are 
able to purchase but little. The class of wealthy 
slave-holders is very limited in number, and a large 
part of their income is often spent at a distance from 
home. The principal mercantile operations consist 
in the purchase and shipment of the great agricultural 
staples, a business which is carried on for the most 
part by means of Enghsh or northern capital, and at 
the same time by English or northern agents, and 
English or northern shipping. 

Neither manufactures nor commerce can be regard- 
ed as adding any thing considerable to the wealth of 
the slave-holding states. 
12 



134 DESPOTISM 



SECTION V. 

InstahUity and uncertainty of values in the Slave- 
Holding States. 

The necessity which the southern planters are un- 
der of confining themselves to the production of a few 
great staple crops, has been already stated and ex- 
plained. Slave labor in the United States, was first 
applied to the cultivation of tobacco. But the foreign 
demand for that article has been stationary ever since 
the revolutionary war, while the domestic demand 
increases only in proportion to the increase of the pop- 
ulation. Since the facilities of transportation between 
the western states and the Atlantic seaboard have been 
so much increased by the construction of canals and 
railroads, the farmers of Ohio have gone extensively 
into the cultivation of tobacco. They produce it by 
free labor, and the quantity of slave labor which can 
be profitably employed in this culture is more likely 
to increase than to diminish. 

The second application of slave labor in the United 
States, was to the cultivation of rice. That cultiva- 
tion however is and always has been, confined to a 
narrow tract of country along the sea coast of South 
Carolina and Georgia ; and as the demand for the 
article is nearly stationary, any considerable increase 
of the production would so diminish the price as to 
make it an unprofitable business. 

Sugar is produced chiefly in the southern districts 
of Louisiana. This culture has been fostered by a 
protective duty, but the climate is too cold and un- 
steady for its extensive prosecution. A few favorable 
seasons created a very false idea of the profits of this 
cultivation. A series of cold seasons has corrected 
ihese hasty impressions. Even including Texas and 
Florida, the production of cane sugar in the United 
States must always be restricted to a limited area. 

The cultivation of cotton^ an article of which the 



IN AMERICA. 135 

consumption has so remarkably increased within the 
last fifty years, has alone prevented the entire depre- 
ciation of southern property. There has been thus 
furnished a crop, to the production of which the labor 
of slaves could be profitably applied, and which has 
prevented such a competition in the other limited ap- 
plications of slave labor above enumerated, as would 
have rendered them utterly ruinous. 

The cotton cultivated in the United States is of two 
distinct kinds, known in commerce, as Sea island, and 
upland or short staple. The Sea island cotton has a 
long silky fibre which adheres so slightly to the seed, 
as to be easily removed by means of two wooden roll- 
ers turning upon each other, which suffer the cotton 
wool to pass iDctween them, but which exclude and 
separate the seed. This kind of cotton is employed 
only in the finest manufactures, and its consumption is 
very limited. It bears a much higher value than the 
other description but it is less productive, and requires 
great care and labor in its preparation for market. 
The sea air seems essential to it, and its cultivation 
is limited to an alluvial tract along the sea coast of 
South Carohna and Georgia. The cultivation of this 
kind of cotton was introduced about the conclusion of 
the revolutionary war ; but it has always been of so 
limited an extent as to hold out no relief to the great 
body of the slave-holders. 

The upland or short staple cotton, has a short fibre 
adhering ^vith such tenacity to the seed, as to require 
the saw gin, an invention of the ingenious Whitney, 
for its separation. This kind of cotton succeeds as 
well in the interior as near the sea, and it is this kind, 
the consumption of which has so rapidly increased. 
It first began to be cultivated as a crop about the be- 
ginning of the present centmy. For the first twenty 
years its production was principally confined to Geor- 
gia and the Carolinas. Since that time it has spread 
into the new states of the south-west, which now pro- 
duce more than three fourths of the entire crop, Avhich 
in the period since the peace with Great Britain in 



136 DESPOTISM 

1815, has risen from two hundred thousand bales, to 
upwards of three millions, per annum. 

The cultivation of cotton is the only employment of 
slave labor which admits of profitable extension. The 
price of cotton regulates the price of slaves, and in- 
cidentally, the value of all kinds of property at the 
south. When all values are thus made dependent 
upon a single pursuit, they are necessarily subject to 
great fluctuations. When there is a great variety of 
employments, there is established in consequence, a sort 
of average permanency of profits. Agriculture may 
be flourishing, though manufactures and commerce are 
suffering a temporary depression ; and some branches 
of agriculture may be profitable, though others fail. 
At the south, every thing is staked upon the cast of 
a single die ; and as is apt to happen in all such cases, 
the planters are either in a state of high prosperity 
which leads to great speculations and the creation of 
great debts, or else in a state of depression, ruinous 
both to northern lenders, and to southern borrowers. 

The commercial fluctuations of the United >States 
generally take their origin at the south. A high price 
of cotton creates at the south a feeling of wealth and 
a strong disposition to contract debts, while it pro- 
duces at the north, a strong disposition to give credit. 
Even though the price of cotton continues high, the 
expectation of the planters runs so far beyond the 
reality, that they presently become unable to fulfil 
their engagements; and if a decline in the price of 
cotton should follow, their inability becomes total, and 
the severe losses experienced in consequence by the 
merchants and manufacturers of the north, throw 
their business also into a temporary confusion. 

There is much reason to expect that these violent 
fluctuations in the value of southern property will 
presently terminate in a general and permanent de- 
preciation. Whether lands and slaves, ten years 
hence, shall have any considerable value in any of 
the southern states, seems to depend very much upon 
the fact, whether or not the consumption of cotton 



IN AMERICA. 137 

shall keep pace with its production. If production 
should overrun consumption, the market will he glut- 
ted, the price will fall, the business will become un- 
profitable, and unless some new, extensive and profita- 
ble application of slave labor should unexpectedly be 
discovered, — an event which is highly improbable — 
land and labor throughout the south, must undergo a 
great decline in value. 

There are weighty reasons for anticipating this result 
within a moderate period. Twice already within the 
last twenty years the production of cotton has so over- 
run consumption as to reduce the profits of the busi- 
ness to the lowest ebb. The price has since rallied, 
but this rise of profits has produced a new rush into 
the business, and a vast emigration from the more 
northern of the slave-holding states, which must re- 
sult in a great increase of the production. On the 
other hand the consumption of cotton goods has al- 
ready reached a point, which makes its extension con- 
tinually more difficult. There is no reason to suppose 
that it can go on increasing for twenty years to come, 
as it has for twenty years past. That increase has 
been principally caused by cotton fabrics superseding 
for certain purposes, the use of linen and woollen cloths. 
That is a process which has a certain limit and which 
cannot be repeated. The consumption of cotton goods 
will doubtless continue to hicrease ; but this increase 
of consumption will be more upon a par than hereto- 
fore, with the increased consumption of other manu- 
factures. 

Whatever the increased demand for cotton may be, 
the slave-holding states of the Union, are liable to en- 
counter a severe competition in supplying it. All that 
portion of the American continent south of the United 
States is well fitted for the production of this article. 
Cotton of a very superior quality is produced to a 
large amount, in Brazil, and all Spanish America 
will presently be entering the market as a rival. 

Great exertions are now making in India, by British 
cultivators, to improve the quality of Indian cotton, 
12=^ 



138 DESPOTISM 

and not without success. The quantity of this article 
worked up by the British manufacturers is steadily 
increasing; and when we recollect how completely 
the British indigo planters in India, succeeded in de- 
stroying the cultivation of indigo in the United States, 
which was once a very considerable business, by pro- 
ducing a superior article at a less price, the competition 
of the Indian cotton planters, however some ignorant 
persons may ridicule it, is by no means to be despised. 

Additional competition is to be expected from Africa. 
The Egyptian cottons are already well known as of 
very superior quality; and it seems highly probable 
that the French will presently introduce the same sort 
of cultivation into their Algerine possessions. 

On the whole it must be confessed that the single 
prop of the cultivation of cotton, forms a most slender, 
fragile and uncertain support, on which to rest the 
prosperity of an extensive and increasing population. 



SECTION VL 

Comparative Progress and Prospei^ity of the Free 
and of the Slave-holding States. 

It is a fact too obvious to be denied even by the 
most prejudiced observers, that the slave-holding states 
of the Union are far inferior to the free states, in every 
thing that constitutes civilization, — in wealth, in ed- 
ucation, in the useful and ornamental arts, in public 
institutions, in public spirit, in literature, in science, 
in density of population, in facility of intercourse, in 
the splendor of cities, the neatness of towns, the com- 
forts and conveniency of individual dwehings. 

Of the thirteen states which originally composed the 
Union, slavery still prevails in six. It has been abol- 
ished in the others, where indeed it never existed to 



IN AMERICA. 139 

any considerable extent. These old free states, by 
the separation of Maine from Massachusetts and the 
admission of Vermont, increased to nine in number, 
include an area of about one hundred and fifty thou- 
sand square miles; the extent of the six old slave 
states is 'upwards of two hundred thousand square 
miles. By the first census in 1790, the former contained 
a population of 1,908,000 souls ; the population of 
the latter amounted to 1,848,000. Fifty years after, 
by the census of 1840, the population of the old free 
states amounted to 6,760,880, while the population of 
the six old slave states was only 3,826,323. The cen- 
sus of 1850 shows the continued operation of the same 
causes, the free section having gained upon the popu- 
lation of 1840 to the extent of 1,553,834, while the 
increase in the slave section is but 713,312, or less 
than half as much. 

Density of population, and the existence of towns and 
cities, are essential to any great degree of social pro- 
gress. Brought thus into contact, mind acts upon mind ; 
what is discovered by one soon becomes known to all ; 
emulation leads to new discoveries and enterprises; 
competition constantly exerts its beneficial influence ; 
the division of labor, that essential means of improve- 
ment, is not practicable among a scattered population; 
cities are the central points from which knowledge, en- 
terprise, and civilization stream out upon the surround- 
ing country. 

In the eight free States above referred to, we find 
three large cities, New York, Philadelphia, and Bos- 
ton, the first of which is generally regarded as the 
commercial metropolis of the Union. There are not 
less than twenty other considerable towns which are 
growing with rapidity, and several of which promise 
to rise to the first importance. Villages containing five 
or six thousand inhabitants, are quite numerous ; new 
ones are springing up every day, and others are pass- 
ing from the class of villages into that of towns. 

How different a picture is presented by the old slave 
States ! They contain but one city deserving the 
name, and that one. be it observed, is situated upon 



140 DESPOTISM 

the verge of the free States, and owes the principal 
part of its importance to that very circumstance. In 
wealth, trade and pubhc institutions, in Hterature, 
science and general refinement, Baltimore is far in- 
ferior to either of the great cities of the north. Charles- 
ton is a little more than a place of deposite for the pro- 
duce of the surrounding country, and a retreat for the 
neighboring planters from the unhealthiness of their 
plantations. It has been about stationary for this last 
thirty years, and the same is true of Alexandria, Nor- 
folk, Savannah, and other ancient towns. Jamestown, 
the original capital of Virginia, has ceased to exist, the 
ruins of an old church steeple are its only memorial. 
Williamsburg the second capital of Virginia, has long 
been in decay. Such existence as it has, it ov/es to the 
ancient college established there. Richmond, the pre- 
sent capital presents a more thriving appearance, — 
but to judge by the depopulation and impoverishment 
of the surrounding country, it must soon share a simi- 
lar fate. 

What are called towns in these States, would for 
the most part, be esteemed at the north, as little better 
than villages. In addition to the small number scat- 
tered along the sea-coast, there are a few of more re- 
cent growth, situated on the great rivers, generally at 
the head of steam-boat navigation. They are points 
at which the produce of the country is collected for 
shipment, and whence imported goods are distributed 
through the adjoining country ; but so few and far be- 
tween, as scarcely at all to vary the dull monotony of 
a poorly peopled country which presents at the same 
time, all the rudeness of a new settlement, and all the 
marks of old age and decay. 

If the slave holding states formed a separate and in- 
sulated nation, cut off from communication and inter- 
course with the free states of the north, there is good 
reason to suppose that they would fall rapidly behind 
hand, in the career of civilization. As it is, they are 
sustained and dragged along by the energy of their 
northern sisters. Improvements are first started and 



IN AMERICA. 141 

put into execution at the north, then slowly and faint- 
ly imitated at the south. The best educated and most 
accomphshed men of the southern states have passed 
their youth at northern schools and colleges ; such 
seminaries for education as the southern states possess, 
are supplied almost entirely with northern or foreign 
teachers. The whole trade of the south, so far as re- 
lates to transactions on the large scale, is in the hands 
of northern merchants who carry on this important 
branch of business for Avhich the native citizens of 
those states, seem to lack the requisite knowledge, sa- 
gacity, perseverance and application. The learned 
professions, physic, divinity, and even the law, are 
more or less, recruited from the same source. The 
newspapers have northern editors ; even the composi- 
tors who set the types are imported. The same is the 
case with all mechanics who have any considerable 
skill in the art they profess. Southern rail roads are 
built with northern capital and by northern engineers 
and contractors. It is hardly possible to erect a large 
hotel, or block of ware-houses without the aid of north- 
ern artificers. The southern states are supplied with 
books and periodicals from northern presses ; and it 
seems to be only by a close and intimate union with 
the north, that civilization at the south is enabled to 
make any progress, or even to preserve itself from de- 
cline. It is worthy of special remark however, that 
those northern men who emigrate to the south imbibe 
by degrees, the feelings and the habits, the indolence, 
and the incapacity of the population by which they 
are surrounded. They are unable to transmit to their 
children any of those qualities which they carried with 
them from home. These children, bred up after the 
southern fashion, are thoroughly southern. It is con- 
stantly necessary that new blood should be transferred 
from the warm and vigorous circulation of the north, 
to revive and quicken the veins, palsied, and made 
stagnant by the poison of slavery. 



CHAPTER FOURTH. 

PERSONAL RESULTS OF THE SLAVE-HOLDING SYSTEM. 



SECTION I. 

Personal Effects of Slavery upon the meTnhers of the 
privileged class. 

By personal results of the slave-holding system 
those results are intended, which exhibit themselves 
in the personal character of the members of a slave- 
holding community. 

Slavery has already been explained to be in its na- 
ture, a protracted state of war. All its results are 
sufficiently conformable to such an origin. 

Soldiers possess a free and self-confident air, and 
when among friends and not irritated or opposed, they 
exhibit a frank good humor, an easy, companionable 
disposition, which renders their society agreeable, and 
causes their company to be generally courted. Their 
military duties often leave them an abundance of lei- 
sure ; for long intervals, they often have nothing to do 
but to seek amusement, and they give a warm and 
hearty welcome to all who are disposed to join and aid 
them in that pursuit. 

These same traits of manners are sufficiently con- 
spicuous among the privileged class of our southern 
aristocracies. Though a large portion of that class is 
destitute of education, and of any real refinement, yet 
almost every member of it has more or less, a certain 
patrician bearing, a consciousness of his own superi- 
ority which gives him an air of manliness and dignity, 



DESPOTISM IN AMERICA. 143 

but which it must be confessed, degenerates too often 
into rudeness and braggadocio. The wealthier and 
better educated, passing almost the whole of their 
lives in a round of social pleasures, have attained to a 
considerable perfection in the art of pleasing ; and 
those who visit the southern states of the Union for the 
first time, are generally captivated by the politeness, 
the hospitality, the attentions, the good humor of the 
people. 

Manners however are far from being any certain in- 
dex of character, and they are often carried to a high 
pitch of refinement, in cases where all the virtues 
which they seem to indicate, are lamentably deficient. 

The soldier nursed in blood and robbery, however 
mildly and gently he conducts himself, is at best only 
a tame tiger, not rashly to be trusted. His passions 
are violent and unmanageable, accustomed to indul- 
gence, and impatient of control. It is the same with 
the slave-master. Habituated to play the tyrant at 
home, unshackled regent and despotic lord upon his 
own plantation, where his wish, his slightest whim is 
law, the love of domineering possesses all his heart. The 
intercourse of society has taught him the policy and 
the advantages of mutual concession in little things, 
and the trifling points of ordinary politeness he yields 
with the ready wiUingness of a well-bred man. Be- 
yond this he is not to be trusted. Alarm his preju- 
dices, his self-love, his jealousy, his avarice, his ambi- 
tion ; cross his path in any shape whatever ; assume 
the character of a rival or a censor : presume to doubt 
his perfect wisdom and immaculate virtue; and from a 
laughing, good natured companion, he is changed at 
once, into a fierce, furious, raving and raging enemy. 
He boils and almost bursts with passion ; he answers 
argument with invective ; instead of reasons, he re- 
plies to you with insults. Not content to restrain his 
hate within the usual limits of civilized life, he thirsts 
for your blood. He murders you in a duel; assaults 
you in the streets with pistols and Bowie knife ; or de- 
liberately shoots you from the door of his house^ with 



144 DESPOTISM 

a double-barrelled gun. The fear of the law does not 
restrain him. In the southern states, a gentleman is 
never hung. The most cold-blooded and deliberate 
murderers, in the upper classes of society, escape with 
a fine or a short imprisonment. The gallows is re- 
served for abolitionists, negro-stealers, and poor white 
folks. 

1. The condition of society in the southern states, 
even among the most refined and best educated por- 
tion of the people, exhibits frightful evidences of fe- 
rocity OF TEMPER, such as a state of everlasting war 
might be expected to produce. Thucidides remarks, 
that from the time the Athenians laid aside the cus- 
tom of going armed, civility and refinement began to 
make a steady progress among them. This is a point 
to which the people of the southern states have not 
yet attained. They generally carry arms ; but the 
pistols, knives and dirks, their favorite weapons, are 
of a kind more fit for foot-pads and assassins, than for 
well-intentioned citizens. In several of the states it 
has been attempted to suppress by penal enactments, 
this barbarous practice of carrying deadly weapons. 
These laws are never enforced, and it is scarcely pos- 
sible they should be. To carry arms in the state of 
things existing at the south, seems absolutely neces- 
sary. If his slaves resist, how else shall the mastei 
maintain his authority 7 Those who have been sub- 
dued by force, must be kept under by force ; and if 
the armed conquerors, in moments of anger, some- 
times turn their weapons against each other, that 
is what is liable to happen among all collections of 
armed men. What wonder if that inhuman and 
blood-thirsty spirit, which the tyrannical rule they ex- 
ercise keeps more or less alive in the bosom of all 
slave ' masters, often bursts out in full fury in their 
quarrels with each other ? The familiarity with which, 
under the influence of excited passion, they talk of 
murder is only to be equalled, by the savage ferocity 
with which, under the same influence, they often com- 
mit it. The atrocity of southern duels has long been 



IN AMKKICA. 145 

notorious, — but what duel can be compared with those 
"rencontres" of which we so often read accounts in 
the southern papers, — accounts which among the peo- 
ple of those states seem to carry with them aU the in- 
terest of a bull-baiting or a cock-fight, — in which two 
men or more, armed to the teeth, meet in the streets, 
at a court-house or a tavern, shoot at each other with 
pistols, then draw their knives, close, and roll upon 
the ground, covered with dust and blood, struggling 
and stabbing till death, wounds, or the submission of 
one of the parties, put an end to the contest? These 
scenes, which if they take place at the north at all, ap- 
pear but once an age, and then only among the lowest 
and most depraved of the emigrant population, are of fre- 
quent and almost daily occurrence at the south, among 
those who consider themselves the most respectable 
people. Andrew Jackson, late president of the United 
States, and regarded as a most illustrious citizen, had 
been engaged in several such affrays. 

II. Improvidence is a vice of the most dangerous 
character. The ancients were so impressed with the 
multitudinous evils and miseries to which it gives 
occasion, that they raised prudence to the dignity of 
one of the four cardinal virtues. Improvidence is 
however a failing, which is apt to prevail to a great 
extent in a slave-holding community. The care- 
less, headlong rapidity with which a planter spends 
his money, is proverbial. This childish profusion 
has even been raised among them to the rank of a vir- 
tue ; it is described as the mark of a noble minded 
man ; while economy is decried and stigmatized as 
mean and little. This sort of profusion may dazzle 
and delight the weak-minded and the thoughtless. It 
is very clear however that it seldom imphes any of 
that benevolence or magnanimity which it has been 
supposed to indicate. 

It generally originates in the desire to gratify some 
whim of the moment, or, what is oftener the case, in the 
desire to be admired as a person of wealth and liber- 
ality. It is one way of gratifying the universal de- 
13 



146 DESPOTISM 

sire of social superiority. A planter will spend some 
hundreds upon an entertainment, and the next morn- 
ing will refuse an extra pair of shoes to a lame old 
negro, who has labored for him all his life. Ask one 
of these lavish spendthrifts to do an act, not of be- 
nevolence merely,' but of justice, by setting a slave at 
liberty, and he will laugh in your face. We hear of 
many acts of profusion at the south, few acts of gen- 
erosity. It is not there, that institutions are endowed 
for purposes of public charity. No associations exist 
there, or next to none, for charitable purposes. When 
a subscription is to be raised for some object of public 
benevolence, the contribution of our southern planters 
is extremely scanty. They lavish thousands on their 
own pleasures, and the companions of those plea- 
sures ; they bestow little or nothing upon the suffer- 
ings of strangers. Indeed it would be absurd to ex- 
pect it. They who are not moved by the scene of 
poverty, degradation and distress, which their own 
plantations every day present, how can they be afi«ect- 
ed by the comparatively little miseries of which they 
only' hear, or which they but casually see? 

The quantity of money that can be got is a limited 
sum; the quantity that can be spent is indefinite. 
Take the southern states throughout, and it is probable 
that seven slave-masters out of ten, live beyond their 
income. The labor, the fruits of which would have suf- 
ficed to make fifty families comfortable and happy, be- 
ing engrossed, with the exception of the barest subsist- 
ence to the laborers, by a single family, does not suflice 
to make that single family happy or even comforta- 
ble. Improvidence subjects to all the miseries of ac- 
tual poverty. Men in the possession of large estates 
are tormented all their lives by sheriff's and duns, and 
at their death, leave large families brought up in all 
the luxury of wealth, and the helplessness of habitual 
indolence, penniless and unprovided for^ a prey to the 
bitterest miseries of want. 

IIL Idleness, says the copy book, is the mother 
of all the vices. If any one doubt the truth of this 



IN AMERICA. 147 

ancient and homely maxim, to be convinced of it, 
he need only spend a year or two in the south. He 
will find a great many idle people there. Almost 
all the owners of slaves have hardly any occupa- 
tion except to amuse themselves. Born and bred 
to this occupation they become incapable of any other. 
One would suppose that having so much leisure time, 
they might turn their attention to the study of agri- 
culture, an art upon which so wholly depends not their 
private income only, bat the public wealth of the com- 
munities to which they belong. But no, — they have 
no taste for such pursuits, and they leave the man- 
agement of their plantations, entirely to their over- 
seers. This neglect however ought not to be wholly 
ascribed to their disinclination for regular and useful 
pursuits. If they go much upon their plantations, so 
many cruel sights come under their view, they are so 
harrassed by petitions and complaints, they find them- 
selves so oppressed by the cares of authority, that they 
hasten to relieve themselves from the burden, and to 
shift it to the shoulders of some case-hardened mana- 
ger. All despotisms are alike. What happens to an 
oriental sultan, happens to an occidental slave-master. 
The weight of empire presses too heavily upon their 
effeminate and feeble necks. Both alike spend in idle 
luxury all that can be spunged from the forced labor 
of their subjects, but both alike transfer the task of 
spunging to a vizier, or an overseer. 

Thus freed from all the cares of business, it might 
be imagined that the wealthy slave-masters of the 
south would bestow their time and thoughts upon the 
pursuit of knowledge, the cultivation of literature, and 
the agreeable arts. We might suppose that they would 
push scientific investigations to their utmost limits, 
astonish the world with new discoveries in morals and 
in physics, or delight it with all the graces of poetry, 
the beauties and sublimities of painting, sculpture, 
music and architecture. 

In these expectations we are totally disappointed. 
Books are a rare commodity at the south ; literature 



148 DESPOTISM 

is uncommon and science still more so. Libraries, 
whether public or private, are seldom to be met with. 
A few classics thumbed over at school, a few novels 
old or new, a sprinkling of political pamphlets, and 
some favorite newspaper, form the whole circuit of 
letters and learning, ordinarily trodden by the most 
studious of the planters. The education of the fe- 
males, even among the wealthiest classes, is still more 
superficial. In this connection, it ought to be remem- 
bered, that a very considerable portion of the priv- 
ileged class are totally destitute even of the rudiments 
of learning. To read is an accomplishment they have 
never acquired. Of course, it is not to be expected 
that persons so unfortunately circumstanced, can find 
employment for their leisure in literary pursuits. 

Thus situated, with no resources for the occupation 
of their time, the privileged class are constantly beset 
by a weariness of soul, perhaps the most distressing 
disorder to which men are subject. "Thank God I 
am not a negro !" said a planter one day, as he sat 
beneath the shade of his porch, and watched his slaves 
in a neighboring field, at work beneath a burning sun. 
Yet it may well be doubted whether the most miser- 
able of those slaves was half as miserable, as their 
unfortunate master, who lived in a lonely part of the 
country, and suffered from a forced idleness and soli- 
tude, the most poignant distresses. 

It is a common remark among the planters that the 
slaves are happier than the masters. Many will re- 
ject this idea with indignation, as a mere falsehood, 
invented to gloss over the abominations of tyranny. 
No doubt the observation is generally urged with that 
intent. But the truth of a fact does not depend upon 
the use intended to be made of it, by those who assert 
it. The more closely a man meditates upon the state 
of things at the south, the more inclined he Avill be 
to admit the truth of the above remark touching the 
comparative happiness of the masters and the slaves. 
Instead however of saying that the masters and the 
slaves are equally happy, the idea might be more 



IN AMERICA. 140 

clearly and distinctly expressed by saying, that boili 
masters and slaves are eqnally miserable. Slavery 
is an invention for dividing the goods and ills of life 
into two separate parcels, so as to bestow all the ills 
upon the slaves, and all the good upon the masters. 
So far as regards the slaves, this attempt is successful 
enough. The miseries of life are concentrated upon 
their heads in a terrible mass. But as respects tiie 
masters the experiment fails entirely. The coveted 
good, like that manna which the too greedy Israel- 
ites sought wrongfully to appropriate, corrupts, putre- 
fies, changes its nature, and turns into evil. Occupa- 
tion too long continued is destructive to happiness, but 
idleness is not less so ; and it may well be doubted 
whether the compulsive labor of the slaves is any more 
copious a source of misery than the forced idleness of 
the masters. I say forced idleness, for in depriving 
themselves of the motives to labor and exertion, they 
force themselves to be idle. 

To obtain some relief from the weariness that con- 
stantly besets them, the planters seek to divert and 
occupy their thoughts by social intercovirse. This is 
the origin of that hospitality for which the people of 
the south are so famous, and which is often brought 
forward as a virtue ample enough to cover the ac- 
knowledged multitude of their sins. Hospitality, it is 
true, bears a certain relation to benevolence ; but it is 
to benevolence no more than is the flounce to the gar- 
ment. The attempt to conceal the nakedness of the 
land by such a rag, is as contemptible as it is futile. 
In truth, the visiters who arrive at a plantation confer 
a real benefit upon the lord of it. They give him oc- 
cupation. The efforts necessary to entertain, are not 
less agreeable to him who makes them, than to those 
for whom they are made. If the visiter be a total 
stranger so much the better. There is the zest of nov- 
elty added to the excitement of occupation. If he 
come from a distant part of the country, better yet. 
He will probably be able to suggest a great many new 
and interesting ideas, likelv to give an agreeable mo- 
13* 



150 DESPOTISM 

tion to the stagnant soul of his host. Hospitahty has 
ever been a virtue abundantly practised among all 
idle and indolent races. The indian tribes of America, 
are all celebrated for its exercise. The plundering 
Arabs of the desert look upon it as a religious duty, — 
for conscience and inclination are always apt to pull 
together. 

But the exercise of this virtue among the people of 
the south, becomes the occasion of several practices of 
the most dangerous and deleterious kind. It is not 
the cause of those practices, but only the occasion for 
them. In itself, it is essentially good, and displays 
the character of the slave-holder in the most amiable 
light it ever assumes. Hospitality is benevolence on 
a small scale, and how can benevolence on any other 
scale be expected, from men whose total existence is 
a continued violation of its clearest and most urgent 
commands 1 

1. The spirit of improvidence, above described, as 
one of the evil results of the slave-holding system, 
when it becomes associated with the passion for hos- 
pitality, is reenforced by two very powerful motives, 
which give it new impetus ; first, the desire of at- 
tracting visiters, by the superior luxury and expen- 
siveness of the entertainment offered; and second and 
principally, the love of superiority, that spirit of emu- 
lation and rivalry, which leads each planter to outvie 
his neighbor in the profusion of his hospitality. It is 
astonishing what a num.ber of southern planters have 
been ruined in their pecuniary affairs by the joint ope- 
ration of these means. 

2. The Hospitality of the south, not only stimulates 
improvidence, it is the nursing mother of the vice of 
DRUNKENNESS, wliich prcvails throughout the whole 
country to a frightful extent. Dinner parties end too 
often in general intoxication. What is called the 
Temperance Reform^, has made but trifling progress 
in the slave-holding states. The obstacles in its way 
are immense. To drink is absolutely necessary as a 
means of killing time, Among iTie lower orders of the 



IN AMERICA. 151 

privileged class, every social meeting ends in drunk- 
enness. Attend an election, and by the time the polls 
are closed, you will find a great collection of citizens 
at the place of voting, all or most of them, " gloriously 
drunk." Stay long enough and you will see a fight. 
f.n Kentucky such occasions are apt to wind up, Avith 
what is called a free fight, that is, a general and indis- 
criminate knock-down, in which every body present 
is at liberty to participate. This is the grand finale, or 
concluding chorus ; but before this part of the per- 
formance is reached, there are duets, trios, quartets 
and quintets, in all possible variety In Mississippi 
Tennessee, and elsewhere, laws have been enacted, 
prohibiting the sale of intoxicating hquors in small 
quantities. Some movements have also been made in 
Georgia and South Carolina, towards obtaining the 
passage of similar laws. Laws of this kind are easily 
enacted in those states, much more so than at the 
north, because in those states, the wholesale trade in 
liquors is almost entirely confined to a few northern 
merchants and traders, who have no political influ- 
ence, while the retail trade is in the hands of a set of 
poor white shopkeepers, rendered odious and infamous 
by their habit of secret traffic with the slaves, and 
belonging to that inferior class of the privileged order, 
which thougli it exceeds in numbers, is deprived for 
the most part, of any political authority. But how- 
ever easy it may be to enact such laws, it Avill be 
impossible to enforce them, so long as the very legis- 
lators by whose votes they are enacted, are themselves 
perpetually in the habit of excessive drinking. These 
laws will fall into the same total neglect with the 
statutes against wearing concealed weapons already 
referred to, and those against gaming, to which we 
shall presently refer. 

3. But such is the total stagnation of intellect and 
sentiment at the south, that even the stimulus of in- 
toxicating liquors is not enough to give life and zest 
to social intercourse. There is need of more potent 
means. Necessity is the mother of invention. That 
means is at hand. It is gaming. 



152 DESPOTISM 

This vice, more dangerous and dreadful, if possible, 
even than drunkenness itself, is equally prevalent at 
the south. Many attempts have been made to eradi- 
cate it. There are penal laws against it, in all the 
slave holding states. Of late, we have seen the sum- 
mary process of Lynch Law applied to the same pur- 
pose. In Vicksburgh, one of the principal towns in 
the state of Mississippi, the most respectable people of 
the place assembled in the month of July, 1835, and 
after pulling down several buildings used as gambling 
houses, proceeded to seize the persons of Jive profes- 
sional gamblers and to hang them on the spot, with- 
out judge or jury. "These unfortunate men," says 
the Louisiana Adver/Aser, "claimed to the last the 
privilege of American citizens, — the trial by jury, — 
and professed themselves Avilling to submit to any 
thing their country would legally inflict upon them ; 
but we are sorry to say, their petition was in vain ! 
The black musicians were ordered to strike up, and 
the voices of the suppliants were drowned by the fife 
and drum. Mr. Riddell, the cashier of the Planter's 
Bank, ordered them to play Yankee Doodle, a tune 
which we believe has never been so prostituted before, 
and which we hope, and we trust will never be again. 
The unhappy sufferers frequently implored a drink of 
water, but were refused. '-^^ # ^ # 'phe wife of 
one of them, half distracted at the cruel treatment 
and murder of her husband, trembling for her own 
safety, in tears begged permission to inter her hus- 
band's body, — but in vain. She was afterwards 
compelled to fly, with her orphan child, in an open 
skiff', for her personal security. The same fate was 
threatened to any person who should dare to cut down 
the bodies before the expiration of twenty-four hours. 
At eleven o'clock the next day, they were cut down 
and thrown together into a hole, which had been dug 
near the gallows, without coflins or any other pre- 
parations, except a box into which one of them was 
put." 

Of the persons who assisted at this execution there 



IN AMERICA. 153 

was not probably one, who was not himself in the 
constant habit of gambling. Yet is the horror of this 
vice so great in the sonthern states, and its ill effects, 
brought home to the pnbhc mind by constant expe- 
rience are so generally acknowledged, that the actors 
in this tragedy were never called to account before 
any judicial tribunal, and their conduct, throughout 
the entire south, Avas either openly approved, or very 
faintly condemned. The tone of reprobation in which 
the Louisiana Advertiser speaks, found but a slight 
and indistinct echo from the other southern prints. 

Yet notwithstanding all the horror, Avith which this 
vice of gambling is regarded, the indulgence in it, at 
least among the men, is next to universal. Aniong 
those who have been swept away by the prevaihng 
current, may be reckoned some of the most able and 
distinguished of our southern and south-western ora- 
tors and politicians, unable to withstand this any 
more than other popular sins. When such men lead, 
followers are always plenty. Every httle village of 
the south has its race-course, its billiard room, its 
faro table, and its gambling house, and of the three 
latter, perhaps several. This grows out of the moral 
necessity of things. Men, in all ages, and in every 
country, who have had much leisure on their hands, 
which they knew not how else to employ, have ever 
sought relief in some sort of gambhng. It is so al- 
ways with savages, sailors and soldiers, and so it is 
with the idle population of the south. The habit 
once acquired, it becomes almost impossible to resist 
its seductions. To reform a gambler is much the 
same difhcult task as to reform a drunkard. The 
planter who has been secluded upon his estate for a 
week or a month, in irksome and wretched indolence, 
his heart all the time devouring itself, orders his horse 
or his carriage in a fit of desperation, and sets out for 
the nearest village. The gaming table offers him the 
speediest and most certain means of excitement, the 
surest method of shaking off the listless misery v/hich 
oppresses him. To the gaming table he goes. It 



154 DESPOTISM 

Stands ahvays ready, — for the necessity of the case has 
created a pecuHar class of men at the south, who are 
gamblers by profession. It was to this class that those 
men belonged who were hanged at Vicksburg. This 
is a profession which has sprung up naturally at the 
south, and as has been said necessarily, and which 
can boast of more talent and accomplishment among 
its members, than the three learned professions of law, 
physic and divinity united. 

The institution of slavery deprives a large portion of 
the people of their natural occupation. But as man is 
essentially an active animal, to supply this deficiency 
it is necessary to create artificial occupations. Gam- 
bling is the employment, which under similar circum- 
stances, has ever presented itself to men, as a means 
of killing time. In order that this employment may 
be indulged in, Avhenever the want of it is felt, it is 
necessary that a peculiar class should exist, as it were, 
the priesthood of the gaming table, always ready at 
all times, to gamble with all comers. These are the 
professional gamblers. They practise gaming not for 
amusement, but as a livelihood. If they left every 
thing to chance and strictly observed the laws of play, 
it would be impossible for them to live by their busi- 
ness, because, in the long run, they would be certain to 
lose as much as they won, and so could have nothing 
left whereupon to live. Hence they are compelled 
to play/a/^e. They must cheat^ or starve. They are 
not merely gamblers, but swindlers. This explains 
the odium attached to their occupation. Merely to 
gamble is no imputation upon any body's character 
in the southern states, or at most it is an imputation 
of which nobody is ashamed. To be a gambler by 
profession is infamous, because it is well understood, 
that every professional gambler is a cheat. 

But though the profession is infamous, still it is 
crowded. Its members throng the steam-boats, the 
hotels, the cities, and the villages of the south, and 
among them may be found, the most gentlemanly, 
agreeable, insinuating, talented, well informed men of 



IN AMERICA. ir)5 

the whole population, constantly on the watch, and 
always laboring to attract, to allure, to please, many 
of them attain a peculiar polish and elegance of man- 
ners. New recruits are always crowding in. The 
planter who has ruined himself by improvidence, dis- 
sipation or losses at the gaming table, the young dis- 
appointed heir, bred up in indolence and luxury by a 
father who dies insolvent, — these persons fmd scarcely 
any other way of gaining their daily bread, except to 
adopt gambling as a profession. There is no other 
business for which they are qualified, there is no other 
art, which they understand. It seems hard to hold 
these individuals strictly responsible for the evil they 
do. You cannot expect them to starve. They are 
the victims of a social system intolerably bad. 

The professional gamblers are above described such 
as they are, when at the head of their profession, and 
in the heyday of success. In general, they soon begin 
to go down hill. Proverbially improvident, they are 
abundantly supplied with money, or wholly without it. 
The latter presently comes to be their habitual condi- 
tion. Their fate closely resembles that of prostitutes in 
a great city. Drunkenness relieves their distresses for 
the moment, but by destroying their health and their 
intellect, soon precipitates them into loAver depths of 
misery. The^^ become at last a burden upon relatives 
and friends ; find in an early death a refuge from de- 
spair; or are precipitated into crimes wliich carry 
them to the penitentiary or the gallows. 

The vice of gambling is not confined to the supe- 
rior portion of the privileged order. It pervades the 
lower class also. There are blacklegs and gambling 
houses adapted to the taste and manners of all. 

To the business of gambling, the professional gam- 
blers from time to time, add several other occupations. 
They become passers of counterfeit money, horse- 
thieves, and negro-stealers. Nothing except the ex- 
treme poverty of the country, prevents them from 
organizing an extensive system of plunder. Horses 
and slaves are almost the only thing, capable of trans- 



156 DESPOTISM 

portation, Avhich can be stolen. In general, to pick 
the pockets of the planters by the help of a faro table 
or a pack of cards, is not only a safe, but a surer 
operation than to attempt it in any other way. 

Party politics, state and national, afford the only 
topic, to any extent of an intellectual character, in 
which any considerable number of the southern pop- 
ulation, take any deep interest, or which serves to any 
considerable extent, to dispel the fog of wearisome 
idleness, by which they are constantly threatened to 
be enveloped. Politics at the south, are rather specu- 
lative than practical. Every slave-holding commu- 
nity is essentially conservative, and opposed to all 
change. The southern politicians puzzle and lose 
themselves in vain attempts to reconcile the metaphy- 
sical system of liberty acknowledged by their own 
state constitutions, with the actual system of despo- 
tism amid which they live. Their ablest reasoners, 
can boast no more than to be subtle logicians, and in- 
genious sophists. Statesmanship is a thing they have 
no idea of. Yet the study of politics, barren, empty 
and profitless as southern politics are, has saved 
many of the finest minds at the south from a total 
stagnation, and affords to great numbers a stimulant 
altogether more harmless than gambling and strong 
drink. Great numbers of the southern planters are as 
great adepts in political metaphysics, as the Scotch 
peasantry are or were, in calvinistic divinity. Grant 
their premises, — which for the most part are utterly 
false, — and they reason like a book. • 

There have been enumerated above, five capital de- 
fects in the character and conduct of the privileged 
class at the south, viz : ferocity of temper, improvi- 
dence, idleness, drunkenness, and gambling. It is but 
justice to say, that the female portion of the privileg- 
ed class are in general entirely free from the two last 
mentioned faults, nor does ferocity of temper exhibit 
itself among them, to any thing the same extent 
as in the male sex. Idleness and improvidence are 
their greatest and most striking defects. 



IN AMERICA. 157 

Among the men however, the whole five are palpa- 
ble, obvious, undeniable. As to this matter there can- 
not be any dispute. It must be confessed, however 
unwillingly that these faults are characteristic of the 
southern people. It has been shown how they are all 
aggravated, and rendered incurable, by the existence 
of slavery. Any attempt to remove or palliate them, 
while that cause of aggravation remains, can have 
only a partial and limited success. It is impossible to 
make men virtuous or happy unless by giving them 
some steady employment that shall innocently engage 
their attention, and pleasantly occupy their time. The 
most essential step in the progress of civilization, is, 
to render useful industry, respectable. But this step 
can never be taken, so long as labor remains the badge 
of a servile condition. 



SECTION II. 

Personal effects of slavery nj)on the ^nembers of the 
unprivileged class. 

Extremes m.eet. The truth of this proposition, in a 
physical point of view is evident from the fact that 
every motion upon the earth's surface describes an 
elliptical curve. Experience would seem to show that 
this proposition is almost as true in morals as in phy- 
sics. At all events it is a curious fact, that the exist- 
ence of slavery in a community, instead of producing 
such diversities as might be supposed, does in fact, in 
many very important particulars, operate almost ex- 
actly alike upon the masters and the slaves. Fero- 
city of temper, idleness, improvidence, drunkenness, 
gambling — these are vices for which the masters are 
distinguished, and these same vices are conspicuous 
traits in the character and conduct of slaves, 
14 



158 DESPOTISM 

1. Ferocity of Temper. The first access of suf- 
fering softens the heart, the long continuance of suffer- 
ing tends to harden it. Suffering when long continu- 
ed, begins to be looked upon as a thing of course. He 
who constantly fears to feel the whip upon his own 
shoulders, ceases to weep because it falls upon another. 
Those who are accustomed to see authority exercised 
• almost solely in the infliction of pain, form present- 
ly a close association between the two things. They 
seem to be inseparable, and a liberal use of violent 
means comes to be looked upon as the only method of 
showing one's power. Now the love of pov/er, or to 
speak more correctly, that love of superiority, which 
the exercise of power is a means of gratifying, is one 
of the native, and one of the strongest impulses of the 
human heart. The slave feels it like other men. 
He indulges it, when, where, and as, he can, upon his 
wife, his children and the horse he drives, or upon 
such of his companions as superior strength, or the 
appointment of his master has submitted to his con- 
trol. He exercises his authority in the same way in 
which authority has been exercised over him. In this 
as in many other respects, he closely copies the exam- 
ple of his master. 

Let it be recollected also that ferocity of temper is a 
peculiar trait of a savage or barbarous state of society. 
In civilized countries, it is principally to be seen 
among the most ignorant and least refined. Civiliza- 
tion is perhaps more remarkable for its effect in soft- 
ening the tempers of men than for any other single 
thing. Slaves are purposely kept in a state of barbar- 
ism and ignorance. That they should have little con- 
trol over their tempers, and should give way to vio- 
lent and sudden gusts of passion, is a matter of course. 
2. Improvidence. Among freemen, the pleasures 
of accumulation are perhaps not inferior to the pleas- 
ures of consumption. The pleasure that a house keep- 
er enjoys from knowing that he has laid by a stock of 
provisions sufficient to support his family through the 
winter, is sufficient to counterbalance a great deal of 



IN AMERICA. 159 

saving and self-denial. But the pleasures of accumu- 
lation are pleasures which a slave cannot enjoy. His 
sole pleasure consists in consuming. It is therefore 
his object to consume all he possibly can. To gratify 
a present appetite is almost all he ever thinks of. He 
knows that his master will not suffer him to perish for 
want of absolute necessaries. Any thing he should 
lay by, he would be in constant danger of losing, be- 
cause property is a thing which the laws do not allow 
him to possess. When he has consumed a thing he is 
sure of it, and only then — 

Be fair or foul, or rain or shine 

The joys I have possessed in spite of fate are mine, 

Nor heaven itself upon the past has power, 

But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour. 

The slaves never read either Horace or Dry den, 
but they feel and they reason in the same way. 

The spirit of improvidence has for its associate on 
the part of the slaves as well as on the part of the 
masters, a remarkable disposition for hospitality. But 
the hospitality of the slaves may justly be regarded 
as a virtue of a much higher order, than the hospi- 
tality of the masters, inasmuch as the slaves bestow 
out of their necessities, whereas the masters in gener- 
al, give from their abundance. Sunday for the most 
part is allowance day, and on those plantations where 
meat forms a part of the allowance, it often happens, 
where the vigilance of masters or overseers does not 
prevent it, that within six hours, the portion of meat 
given out for the whole week, is consumed in treating 
friends and acquaintances from some neighboring 
plantations, where meat is a luxury that forms no por- 
tion of the regular allowance. The slaves are as fond 
of nocturnal entertainments as the masters are of din- 
ner parties, and the profuse liberality with which, 
from the scanty means within their power, they con- 
tribute to get them up, shows them in point of good 
fellowship, to be not less free hearted than their mas- 
ters. 



160 DESPOTISM 

3. Idleness. The natural stimulus of labor is, the 
hope of reward. The expectation of reward is capa- 
ble of exciting the most strenuous exertions, and when 
properly presented, never fails of effect. Where this 
motive does not exist, industry is unknown. The 
fear of punishment cannot produce it. The most it 
can do is, to produce an empty appearance of it, 
which is in fact little better than idleness in the dis- 
guise of labor. 

But it is not alone the absence of reward that makes 
a slave necessarily idle. In his mind labor is asso- 
ciated indissolubly with the lash. Pain, weariness, 
fear, the sense of inferiority, these are in his eyes, 
the natural companions of labor. What wonder if he 
regard it with disgust? On the other hand, idleness, 
to his limited vicAV, appears to be the distinguishing 
badge of freedom, and with freedom he associates every 
idea of pleasure and content. 

Idleness again, in point of fact, is in the case of a 
slave a real luxury, a true delight, much more so, 
than it ever can be in the case of a freeman, and that 
for three reasons. First, because rest is ever delightful 
to the weary, and those who labor by compulsion are 
always weary. Second, because being idle, as has 
been shown in a previous chapter, is a sort of means 
whereby the slave is enabled to regain, as it were, a 
certain portion of his liberty. Third, because idle- 
ness is a means of lessening the value of that stolen 
labor upon which the master has seized, and so of in- 
dulging that indignation and hatred which the slave 
naturally feels. Do we not commonly destroy our 
property, whether public or' private, whenever that is 
the only way to save it from falling into the hands of 
an enemy ? 

To make men industrious, who have all these mo- 
tives for idleness, is out of the question. The experi- 
ence of the world has proved ten thousand times over, 
and every individual who will but consider his own 
motives of action, must be abundantly, satisfied, that 
the only stimulus that can be relied upon as able to 



IN AMERICA. 11)1 

produce a life of regular industry is, — the hope of re- 
ward, — a fair prospect of being permitted to enjoy un- 
disturbed, the fruits of our labor. 

4. Drunkenness. The excitement which drunk- 
enness produces is of so very pleasurable a kind, that 
those who have once experienced it, have need of very 
strong motives to enable them to resist the temptation 
it holds out. Especially is this the case v/ith those who 
lack that steady, regular yet innocent stimulus sup- 
plied by a daily occupation in which they take pleasure. 
When occupation is wanting, or when instead of be- 
ing pleasurable the occupation to which a man is 
obliged to submit, is irksome and disagreeable, there 
results a miserable Aveariness of soul, against which 
drunkenness offers an opiate so tempting that even 
the most intelligent and best educated are not always 
able to resist it. That the slaves as a body should 
greedily snatch at it, is not surprising. 

5. Gambling. That same wearisome state of 
mind, which among both bond and free is the greatest 
temptation to drink, proves also the strongest induce- 
ment to gamble. The human mind craves excite- 
ment. It is the very vital air of the soul, as essential 
to it as motion is to the health of the body. If this 
desire cannot be gratified by innocent means, means 
of gratification will be devised which are not inno- 
cent. Of these means gambling is one of the most po- 
tent and pernicious ; and a means as popular among the 
slaves as among the masters. It ought to be observ- 
ed however with respect both to this vice and to that 
of drunkenness, that both of them prevail to a much 
less extent among the slaves than with the free, be- 
cause the opportunities, means, and facility for these 
kinds of indulgences which the slaves possess, are far 
inferior to those possessed by the free. 

It is proper also to observe that the five great de- 
fects of character and conduct common as we have 
seen to the privileged and the unprivileged classes 
at the south, all exhibit themselves among the free, 
in a form more aggravated, and more disgusting — 
14^ 



162 DESPOTISM 

at all events in a form far more pregnant with mis- 
chief than among the slaves. Slavery it would seem 
is but the foster-mother of vice ; tyranny is the real 
parent, — for the privileged class at the south have 
not yet reached that point of refinement indicated by 
Burke, at which vice by losing all its grossness loses 
half its evil. 

The ferocity of the slaves is a mild thing compared 
with the ferocity of the masters. It is rare to hear of a 
slave murdered by a slave, while the murder of white 
men by white men, is an every day occurrence. 
The instrument of vengeance which the slave most 
commonly employs, is his fist, or at most a club. The 
master uses pistols, dirks, knives, and double barrel- 
led guns. With all the bad reputation of Spain and 
Italy, assassinations were never a quarter so common 
in those countries as they now are in the south-western 
states of the American Union. The chance or rather 
I might say, the probability of dying a violent death 
seems to be far greater in the states of Mississippi, 
Arkansas and Texas, than in any other part of the 
known world, not even the most barbarous countries 
excepted. 

Idleness we must consider, presents itself to the 
slaves under the aspect of a pure good. In them it 
cannot be regarded as a vice. Is it a crime to evade 
as far as possible, the violence of robbery? 

The privileged class on the contrary, are able to 
view idleness in its true light. It is not only the 
cause, and to the privileged class perceptibly the 
cause of all those evils traced to it above, but the love 
of idleness is in fact, the real foundation of slavery. 
The masters wish to enjoy without working ; to reap 
where they have not sowed, to gather where they 
have not strawed. This is the whole secret of the 
social system of the south. This unjust desire, which 
in the nature of things never can be fully gratified — 
for the enjoyment thus obtained is poisoned and cor- 
rupted by a certain secret inherent flavor of bitter- 
ness — 



IN AMERICA. 163 

— Medio de fonte leporum, 
Surgit amari aliquid, quod in ipsis floribus angat,— 

this unjust desire to possess without labor, may be 
looked upon as the fruitful source of all the evils which 
the system of slavery involves. Under such circum- 
stances, idleness ceases to be merely a vice, it becomes 
a crime, and a crime too of the very blackest die ; for 
it is the immediate cause of all kinds of crimes which 
men have agreed most to stigmatize, and those crimes 
too not perpetrated one by one, and in defiance of law, 
but perpetrated wholesale and systematically, not by 
individual upon individual, but by one half the com- 
munity upon the other half, and that too with the 
sanction of legislatures and tribunals. 

As regards improvidence, drunkenness and gam- 
bling, on the part of the slaves they are comparatively 
venal offences. The harm they can do is limited, and 
is confined almost entirely to the person of the ofien- 
der himself. There is no danger that by giving way 
to them, he will precipitate a whole family into pov- 
erty and distress. There is no danger that his ex- 
ample will have a pernicious influence upon society 
at large. What is the example of a slave? Nor is 
there any likelihood that by giving way to these 
temptations he may render useless gifts which prop- 
erly exercised might have redounded to the benefit of 
the community. The only talent proper to a slave is the 
talent of handUng a hoe. With him, these vices ter- 
minate for the most part in themselves. The seconda- 
ry evils which they produce are comparatively speak- 
ing, inconsiderable. Among the privileged class these 
indulgences give rise to a train of secondary evils of 
which the mere catalogue would fill a volume ; evils, 
which instead of confining themselves to the person 
of the offender, overflow, spread abroad, sweep away 
whole families, and inundate society. No language 
is too strong to describe the dangerous and fatal char- 
acter, which when practised by the privileged class, 
these vices assimie. 



164 DESPOTISM 



SECTION III. 

Poijits of diversity in the character of the privileged 
and the unprivileged classes. 

1. Courage is one of those chivalrous virtues much 
boasted of among the freemen of the south. They 
are brave beyond question. All freemen are so. 
Courage is a virtue which always exists in the great- 
est perfection among freemen, because among freemen, 
it is most esteemed and most cultivated. Courage is 
essential to the maintenance of liberty. When it 
happens that freemen are also tyrants, courage is cul- 
tivated and fostered for the additional reason that it 
is essential also to the maintenance of tyranny. 
What importance is attached to this virtue at the south, 
may be conjectured from the braggadocio spirit, which 
so universally prevails there. Listen to southern 
conversation, or read the southern newspapers, and 
one would suppose that every mother's son of the free 
population, was an Orlando Furioso, or a Richard 
C(jeurde Lion at the least. What wonder if courage 
abound where it is so highly esteemed and so greatly 
encouraged. 

The slaves, on the other hand, are cowards. A brave 
man may be found among them here or there, but 
cowardice is their general characteristic. If it were 
not so, the system of slavery would be very short liv- 
ed. To organize a successful insurrection, something 
more than mere courage is no doubt necessary. But 
courage alone is sufficient to produce a series of un- 
successful insurrections, and however individually un- 
successful ; a series of insurrections would shortly ren- 
der the masters' empire not worth preserving. If the 
slaves are cov/ards, it is a vice to which they have 
been diligently trained up from their earliest childhood. 
Were a tenth part of the pains bestowed to make 
them brave, which are taken to render tliem otherwise, 
they would be as courageous as their masters. The 



IN AMERICA. 165 

boldest heart very soon becomes subdued, when every 
indication of spirit, every disposition to stand at bay 
is'shortly visited by the whip, irons, or a prison. 

2. The Chastity of their women is another chivah'ous 
virtue, much boasted of by the freemen of the south. 
The southern people have reason to be proud of their 
women. From the most disgusting vices of the men, 
they are, as we have mentioned ah'eady, in a great 
measure free, and such active virtue as is to be found 
at the south, at least the larger portion of it, is to be 
looked for among the female sex. 

If however the women have escaped to a certain ex- 
tent, the blighting influences of tyranny it is because 
they are sedulously shielded from its Avorst effects. 

Chastity like courage is to a great extent, an artifi- 
cial virtue, the existence of v/hich principally depends 
upon education and public opinion. Both education 
and public opinion are stretched to their utmost influ- 
ence to preserve the chastity of the southern women, 
while the free and more luxurious indulgence which 
ihe men find elsewhere, causes the seduction of free 
women to be a thing seldom attempted. 

Among the slaves, a woman, apart from mere natu- 
ral bashfulness, has no inducement to be chaste ; she 
has many inducements the other way. Her person 
is her only means of purchasing favors, indulgences, 
presents. To be the favorite of the master or one of 
his sons, of the overseer, or even of a driver, is an ob- 
ject of desire, and a situation of dignity. It is as much 
esteemed among the slaves, as an advantageous mar- 
riage Vv^ould be, among the free. So far from involv- 
ing disgrace, it confers honor. Besides, where mar- 
riage is only a temporary contract, dissolvable at any 
time, not by the will of the parties alone, but at the 
caprice and pleasure of the masters, what room is 
there for any 5uch virtue as chastity ? Chastity con- 
sists in keeping the sexual appetite under a close re- 
straint except when its indulgence is sanctioned by 
marriage. But among slaves every casual union, 
though but for a day, is a marriage. To persons so 



166 DESPOTISM 

situated, we cannot justly apply ideas founded upon 
totally different circumstances. If we choose how- 
ever to understand by chastity the restriction of one's 
self to a single partner, chastity is very far from being 
so rare a virtue among the women of the unprivileg- 
ed class as is often asserted, and generally supposed. 
Though the union may be dissolved in a moment, 
at the slightest caprice of the parties, such separations 
are much more rare than might be imagined. More 
husbands and wives among the slaves are separated 
by the hammer of the auctioneer, than by the united 
influence of infidelity, disgust, or the desire of change. 

3. Fraud, falsehood, and dishonesty are represent- 
ed by the masters, as distinguishing traits in the cha- 
racter of the unprivileged class. This charge is un- 
founded. It has been shown already, that as between 
master and slave, from the very nature of that rela- 
tion, mutual confidence, trust and rehance, are out of 
the question. To deceive his master is almost the 
only means of self-defence in the power of the slave. 
What ground of mutual confidence is it possible to es- 
tablish between the robber and the robbed 7 To hold 
those promises binding which are extorted by force, 
to maintain that one is obliged to keep faith with a 
plunderer, is to surrender up, to the hands of violence, 
through the influence of a weak and cruel superstition, 
or a piece of miserable and empty sophistry, not the 
body only, but the soul ; not only actions, but the will ; 
the future as well as the present ; — it is to strip weak- 
ness and suffering of their last defence, and to give 
omnipotence to tyranny. 

In their transactions with each other the members 
of the unprivileged class at the south, are by no means 
deficient in the great and necessary virtues of truth, 
honesty and fidelity. The difficulty of inducing them 
to betray each other is proverbial, and is a matter 
of grievous complaint among masters and overseers. 
There are amoirg the slaves, as among all bodies of 
men, some who set up honesty for sale, and who be- 
come instruments of tyranny in the hands of the pri- 



IN AMERICA. 1G7 

vileged class. There are others shrewd and slippery, 
upon whom no dependence whatever can be placed, 
even by their friends and relations. Characters of this 
sort, are quite as common among the privileged order. 
Indeed more so. There has been already mentioned 
that great class of professional gamblers, whose sole 
business it is to prey upon the community, to inveigle 
the unwary, and entrap the ignorant. There is no 
such class among the slaves. There is still another 
great class among the privileged order, who live al- 
most wholly upon the plunder of their richer neigh- 
bors, the receivers, namely, of stolen goods, the keep- 
ers of the petty trading stores, scattered throughout 
the south. They take in the corn, cotton and rice 
stolen by the slaves, and give in exchange whisky 
and other luxuries. This class of traders is very 
large. The severest laws have been enacted to 
suppress them, but without success. Lynch law is 
now and then administered upon them in all its sever- 
ity, but the nuisance cannot be abated. These men, 
compared with the slaves, are wholly without excuse. 
They live by constant violations of laws, by constant 
breaches of a social compact to which they have them- 
selves assented. This is a case in which the receiver, 
even in a legal point of view, is a thousand times 
worse than the thief. Yet to speak within bounds, 
for every five or six acts of theft, (or what is called 
so,) committed on the part of slaves, there is at least 
one act of reception committed on the part of some 
freeman. We may therefore consider it to be reduced 
to an arithmetical demonstration, that so far as relates 
to violations of property, the offences of the free are 
greater than those of the slaves. To this conclusion 
we must come, even without taking into account the 
appalling fact that the entire existence of a large part 
of the privileged class is but one constant, steady vio- 
lation of all those principles upon which the very idea 
of property depends, and upon which the virtues of 
truth, honesty, justice and fidelity must rest for their 
only sure support. We may apply to the southern 



168 DESPOTISM IN AMERICA, 

slave-holders, 3.jeu (V esprit of Talleyrand's. A certain 
person was complaining that every body consider- 
ed him a worthless, infamous fellow, yet said the 
complainant, I do not know why, for I have never 
committed but one fault in my life. " Ah !" said 
Talleyrand, "but when will that one fault be end- 
ed?" 

To those accustomed to look only at the outside of 
things, the results to which this chapter has brought 
us, will no doubt seem strange. It is impossible, they 
will say, that men whose circumstances are so contra- 
dictory, and whose whole appearance is so different, 
can after all, be so much alike. Such readers will do 
well to call to mind the lines of Shakspeare, — 

Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear j 
Robes and furr'd gowns, hide all. Plate sin with gold, 
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks 
Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw doth pierce it. 

That gold however, with which the system of south- 
ern slavery is plated, is not the true metal. 'Tis but a 
fairy, shadowy, imaginary gold which cannot cross the 
running waters of truth, without being changed back 
again to its original worthlessness. 



CHAPTER FIFTH. 

LEGAL BASIS OF THE SLAVE-HOLDING SYSTEM. 



I 



SECTION I. 

Preliminary Ohsei'vations. 

One main pillar of domestic slavery, as it now ex- 
ists in the United States, is the idea that it rests upon 
law. Law is regarded with veneration, and no 
where more so than in the United States, as the great 
foundation and support of the right of property, of 
personal rights, in a word — of social organization. 
Jurists, with a natural disposition to exaggerate the 
importance of a profession to which most of them 
have belonged, have been induced to overlook or to 
disregard the natural foundation of rights. Most of 
them represent the idea of property as resting on a 
merely artificial basis — the law ; not the law of na- 
ture, but the law of convention. Upon that same 
artificial basis, too, they are inclined mainly to rest 
even the most important of personal rights. These 
ideas, widely spread through the community, greatly 
modify public opinion upon the question of slavery. 
In the abstract, slavery, all admit, is sheer cruelty and 
injustice. But slavery, as it exists in the United 
States, is supposed to be legal; and being legal, is 
supposed to acquire a certain character of right. To 
use our best eftbrts for the suppression of cruelty and 
injustice, is admitted to be a moral duty. But then 
it is a moral duty, and, in the opinion of many, a 
paramount duty, to obey the law. 

15 ' (169) 



170 DESPOTISM 

Prevailing ideas on the theory of government tend 
precisely the same way. Those ideas, derived from 
Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, represent government 
as a contract. The natural state of man, the state of 
nature, is assumed to be a state of hostility on the 
part of each individual against every other, or, ac- 
cording to Rousseau, of total isolation. To escape 
out of this v/retched condition, men, we are told, 
resorted to the artificial expedient of societies and gov- 
ernments founded on contract. According to this 
theory, the only moral principle involved in the idea 
of government is — Contract; and this contract, we 
are told, must be preserved inviolate, or government 
is at an end, and chaos comes again. No matter how 
absurd ; no matter how unjust towards ourselves or 
others: a bargain is a bargain ; and though it stipu- 
lates for the pound of flesh, it must be fulfilled. 
Many excellent men, ready to denounce slavery in 
the abstract as the sum of all iniquities, will tell us, 
in the same breath, that the " compromises of the 
constitution" guaranty its existence. It is morally 
wrong, they say, to attempt to evade or get over, 
or set aside, those compromises — an appeal to 
notions of mercantile honor not without a powerful 
influence upon the best portion of the community. 

These opinions respecting law and government in- 
volve, indeed, the inconsistency and absurdity of sup- 
posing that men have power, by arrangement and 
convention, to make that artificially right which 
naturally is wrong — an inconsistency and absurdity 
which there have not been wanting able writers to 
expose. These ^\Titer3 have shown clearly enough, 
that the basis of law, the basis of property, the basis 
of personal rights, the basis of government, are to be 
sought for and found not in any artificial contracts, or 
arbitrary statutes or usages, but in the nature and 
constitution of man. They have sho\vn clearly 
enough, that law, so far as it has any binding moral 
force, is and must be conformable to natural princi- 
ples of right; indeed, that in this conformity alone its 



IN AMERICA. 171 

moral binding force consists; and that so far as this 
conformity is wanting, what is called law is mere 
violence and tyranny, to which a man may submit 
for the sake of peace, but which he has a moral right 
to resist passively at all times, and forcibly when he 
has any fair prospect of success. Such, indeed, was 
the principle upon which the American Revolution 
was justified. The acts of parliament of which the 
colonies complained, had all the fo^ms of law, and 
Mansfield and other ffreat lawyers said thev were law. 
But in the view of the colonists, they lacked the 
substance without which law cannot exist. They sub- 
verted those fundamental rights embodied in that 
maxim and usage of the English constitution, which 
couples taxation and representation together. Tax- 
ation without representation was denounced by the 
colonists as mere robbery, to which, though concealed 
under the form of law, they were not legally obliged 
to, and would not, submit. 

The principle of the perpetuity and inviolability of 
contracts, no matter what their object, character, or 
operation, has been attacked with no less energy and 
success. It has been triumphantly shown, that the 
very essence and substratum of contract is, mutual 
benefit. Contracts, whether in law or morals, have no 
binding force without a consideration, a good and 
valuable consideration. Men cannot bargain away 
either their own rights or the rights of others. All 
such pretended contracts are void from the beginning 
— the spawn of fraud in the one party, and ignorance 
in the other, or of injustice and immoral intentions in 
both. To say, that by committing the folly or the 
crime of contracting to do an immoral act, a man 
lays himself under a moral obligation to do that im- 
moral act, is to overturn the very foundations of 
morality. Nor are tliese principles the mere notions 
of theoretical moralists. So far as relates to private 
contracts, they are fully acknowledged and admitted 
by all courts of law throughout the civilized, world. 
They constitute, indeed, the fundamental principle 



172 



DESPOTISM 



upon which those courts administer the law of con- 
tracts. 

Bat all these appeals to general principles, however 
able and conclusive, have, when applied to the ques- 
tion of slavery, but little weight with the great body 
of the community.- Did they relate to points in 
which that body had a direct, obvious, personal in- 

J terest, the appeal, no doubt, would be irresistible. 
When Andros, governor of New England, undertook 
to deprive people of their lands, under pretence of 
defective titles, " the men of Massachusetts did much 
quote Lord Coke ; " and finding that useless, they 
stripped Andros of his power. When Grenville at- 
tempted to levy taxes without their consent, they 
were ready at once to resort to fundamental princi- 
ples, and, when those principles failed, to their mus- 
kets. Then, the case touched themselves. When it 
only touches the unfortunate negroes of the southern 
states, or a few poor colored people of the north, it is 
quite a different matter. Appeal to principle is then 
denounced as wild and visionary. Always fearful of 
effort and responsibility, the great mass of the com- 
munity intrench themselves on this question behind 
statutes, decisions, usage, the opinions of lawyers, 
and the current notions of the day. To be sure, 
slavery is wrong and unjust, and impolitic and wick- 
ed, but then it is — legal. 

~— Nor, indeed, is this conduct to be wondered at, 
the very courts, those reverend depositories of the 
knowledge of the law, those vicegerents upon earth 
of eternal equity and justice, having themselves set the 
example. In mere questions of private right, the 
courts resort, without hesitation, to those eternal prin- 
ciples of right reason, that is, of true morality, which 
they boast to be the foundation of law ; and they set 
aside, without hesitation, every private contract which 
has in it any trace or tincture of fraud or crime. But 
when it comes to the enforcement of so called politi- 
cal contracts, a sad change is observable. Individual 
lawyers, indeed even judges on the bench, of the 



IN AMERICA. 17'i 

highest eminence, have not hesitated to say, that an 
act of parliament contrary to the law of God, that is, 
contrary to the eternal principles of right, is void. 
Such opinions have been thrown out incidentally, 
with great apparent boldness and decision. But when 
has an act of legislation been set aside on that ground ? 
No court in England or America has ever yet dared 
to do it. Courts have bowed submissively at the feet 
of the governments, their creators, ascribing to those 
creators an omnipotence over right and wrong greater 
than the philosophy of our day is willing to allow 
even to God himself. They hold, indeed, to the 
maxim Fiat justitia, mat cceluvi, but in this sense : 
" the will of the government must be done, though 
heaven itself be trampled under foot." It must be 
admitted as the settled doctrine of courts of law, that 
the supreme legislative authority has the power to 
declare to be law even that which is against right. 
But this has been a forced concession ; and as Gal- 
ileo, when obliged by the Inquisition to confess that 
the earth stood still, mumbled yet between his teeth, 
as he rose from his knees, " It moves though," — so 
our courts of law, blushing and stammering at the 
disgraceful concession extorted from them by fear and 
power, have done their best to limit and to nullify 
that concession. If the supreme legislature chooses 
to say that manifest wrong shall be law, the courts 
submit to enforce it as such. But then they will 
never presuppose that the supreme legislature in- 
tends to do any thing so absurd and cruel. If the 
intention is plain, manifest, and clear, it must be 
enforced; but the courts will never resort to implica- 
tion, or conjecture, or construction, to make out any 
such intention. This principle in the interpretation 
of legal enactments, perfectly well settled and estab- 
Jished in all the courts of England and America, is 
thus laid down by Chief Justice Marshall, in the case 
of United States v. Fislier, 2 Cranch, 390. " Where 
rights are infringed, where fundamental principles are 
overthrown, where the general system of the laws is 
15* 



174 DESPOTISM 

departed from, the legislative intention must be ex- 
pressed with irresistible clearness, to induce a court 
of justice to suppose a design to effect such objects." 

It is thus that, in all cases of injustice attempted 
under the form of legislation, courts, while admitting 
the powei;of the legislature, yet reserve to themselves 
a power to defeat the wicked legislative intention, by- 
refusing to suppose the legislature capable of any 
such intention. But the extent to which this indirect 
veto power is carried out in particular cases, must 
evidently depend very much upon circumstances, and 
especially upon the character and position of the 
court. Where a court is exceedingly indisposed to 
see, and is so situated as to be able to give effect to 
its inclinations, " irresistible clearness " is out of the 
question. No possible form of words can produce it. 
Now the disposition on the part of the court to see or 
not to see a wicked intention, will depend upon two 
things : first, the opinion of the court as to the degree 
and aggravation of the wickedness ; secondly, their 
opinion as to the amount of support likely to be found 
in the community, should an attempt be made to de- 
feat that wicked intention. 

Take the case of slavery for example. Suppose 
that in a slave-holding community the question of the 
legality of slavery is raised, and certain legislative 
acts are quoted to sustain it. If the court should 
happen to entertain the opinions professed by Mr. 
Calhoun, that slavery is not only a blessing in itself, 
but the essential foundation of a republican govern- 
ment, of course they would see, with great facility, 
an intention in the quoted acts to give to slavery a 
legal basis. Even if they entertained the more com- 
mon opinion, avowed by Mr. Clay, that slavery, 
though an evil in itself, is yet, under existing circum- 
stances, a necessary evil, the only means of preserving 
the two races of whites and blacks from a war of 
extermination, they would still find no great difficulty 
in perceiving a legislative intention to legalize slavery. 
But suppose the judges have the feelings proper to 



IN AMERICA. 175 

men enlightened and humane ; suppose their eyes 
fully open to the enormous criminality of slavery ; 
suppose they saw in vivid colors all its multiplied 
evils and miseries, both for masters and slaves — it 
would be very difficult for any form of words to es- 
tablish, with "irresistible clearness," in the minds of 
such men, a legislative intention to legalize so much 
folly and crime. If, besides, they saw opinions hos- 
tile to slavery openly avowed and spreading around 
them ; if they saw a certainty of being powerfully 
sustained in reinstating justice on her seat, — what 
form of words would be able to satisfy such a court 
that the supreme legislative authority intended to 
sanction a system so horribly unjust ? At all events, 
a -court so constituted and so situated, would surely 
never discover any such intention in a case where 
there were either no words at all, or but very obscure 
and vague ones. 

It is the glory of the tribunals of the common law, 
that, even when trampled in the mud by the feet of 
power, they have never consented to lie there in quiet. 
They have struggled, always to a certain extent, often 
nobly, to rise again, to cleanse the ermine robes of 
justice from the mire of ignorant, weak, cruel, self- 
seeking legislation, to lift again on high the balance 
of equity, and, to the full extent of their power and 
their light, to weigh out again equal justice to all. 
But to enable them to do this, the community about 
them must uphold their hands. What can four or 
five gray-haired men do against the ferocity, the 
wrongheadedness, the intentional injustice of a whole 
community ? Men formed by long experience of the 
world in its least amiable aspects, will not cast their 
pearls before swine's feet. The sort of men who oc- 
cupy the judicial bench are seldom much inclined to 
outrun popular opinion ; yet however it may be fash- 
ionable among them to affect to despise such opinion, 
it is none the less true that their own views are greatly 
influenced, if not indeed mainly determined, by the 
prevailing sentiment of the community about them. 



176 DESPOTISM 

In these considerations we shall find a complete 
reply to a taunt frequently thrown in our teeth by the 
advocates of the legality of slavery. What more 
absurd, they say, than to question a legality recog- 
nized and admitted ever since the settlement of the 
country ! 

But why absurd ? 

From a period long preceding the settlement of 
North America down to the famous decision in 
Somerset's case, three or four years before our decla- 
ration of independence, the legality of slavery was 
also recognized and admitted in England. It required 
the indefatigable perseverance of a Granville Sharpe, 
the enlightened humanity of a Mansfield, an age 
awake to the rights of humanity, and a community 
free, in a great measure, from the bias of interest, to 
draw up "from the deep well of the law" that " ami- 
able and admirable secret," 

" No slave can breathe in England." 

" The knowledge of the law," says my Lord Coke, " is 
like a deep well, out of which each man draweth 
according to the strength of his understanding." Is 
it too much to hope, that we shall yet have American 
judges with hearts and understandings strong enough 
to draw up out of that same deep well the twin 
secret, that there is not, and never was, any legal 
slavery in America? It is not strength of under- 
standing that has failed us. Have we not had on the 
bench of the United States Supreme Court a Jay, a 
Wilson, a Marshall, a Story? What has been lack- 
ing is heart, conscience, courage ; more than all, the 
surrounding support of an enlightened and humane 
public opinion, to sustain our judges in looking this 
lurking devil of slavery in the face. No court of 
justice in the United States has ever yet dared do it, 
lest being called upon to decide against the legality of 
slavery, they might be called upon, in so doing, to set 
at defiance a conglomeration of interests and preju- 
dices which they have not had courage to brave, 



IN AMERICA. 



177 



which no prudent court could be expected to brave. 
And what has been wanting, no less than a fearless 
court, a court daring enough to face, in the cause of 
justice and right, the ferocious prejudices of a fero- 
cious nation — has been, a learned, independent, fearless 
bar. The court alone, unaided by the bar, is incapa- 
ble of administering justice. Points must first be 
presented, before they can be decided ; and how much 
depends on the manner and the medium of their 
presentation! Would the English law of treason 
ever have been stripped of so many of its terrors, and 
reduced so much within the limits of justice and 
moderation, but for the earnest struggles of an Erskine 
and a Curran ? Had O'Connell been an ordinary 
lawyer, or an ordinary culprit, would the English 
House of Lords ever have seen those flaws in his 
indictment which the Irish judges had overlooked? 

No council has ever yet been retained for the slaves ; 
no body of influential friends has ever appeared, to 
impress upon the judges the necessity of serious in- 
vestigation, and to assm-e them of support in sus- 
taining the right. The case has gone by default; 
or rather, it has never yet been entered in court. 



SECTION II. 

Slavery as a Colonial Institution, 

Servitude in the Middle Ages existed in England 
under two forms. Villeins in gross were slaves, in 
several respects the same as ours, transferable from 
master to master, like any other chattel. Villeins 
regardant were serfs, attached to the soil, inseparable 
from it, and transferable only with it. These same 
two forms of servitude, but recently abolished in 
Hungary, may still be seen in Russia. Villeinage 



178 DESPOTISM 

was hereditary — the villeins being the descendants 
of the ancient Britons and Saxons, held in servitude 
from a time whereof the memory of man ran not to 
the contrary. 

Previous to the discovery of America, or shortly 
after that period, English villeinage in gross had 
almost ceased to exist. So late as the reign of Eliza- 
beth, only a few villeins regardant remained, in 
some obscure corners. The lawyers and the clergy, 
in whom the principal intelligence of that age was 
vested, had both greatly contributed to this result. 
In all questions touching villeinage, the English com- 
mon law courts had made it a point to lean in favor 
of freedom. All men were supposed to be free, and 
the burden of proof lay on the claimant. To prove a 
man a villein, unless he confessed himself such in 
open court, — and the last recorded confession of this 
kind was in the nineteenth year of Henry VI., (1441,) 
— it was necessary to show title to him by proscrip- 
tion ; that is, to show that, being born in lawful wed- 
lock, he was descended of a stock of villeins on the 
father's side time out of memory. For the English 
common law courts refused to recognize the doctrine 
of the civil law — that favorite doctrine of all slave- 
holding communities — that the children of female 
slaves inherit from the mother the condition of slavery. 
They held, on the contrary, that the child followed the 
condition of the father. Bastard children, being in 
the eye of the law children without fathers, of course 
were born free — a doctrine which gave freedom to 
great numbers, for, in all slave-holding communities, 
the masters esteem it a part of their right to use the 
slave women as concubines. 

Taking a hint apparently from the Mahometans, 
the clergy had denounced it as a scandalous and out- 
rageous thing for one Christian to hold another in sla- 
very; and their preaching on this point had been so 
successful, that about the time of the discovery of 
America it had come to be considered a settled mat- 
ter, not in England only, but throughout Western 



IN AMERICA. 179 

Europe, that no Christian ought to be, or lawfully 
could be, held as a slave. 

But with the customary narrowness of that age, this 
immunity from slavery was not thought to extend to 
infidels or pagans. While the emancipation of serfs 
was going on, black slaves, brought by the Portu- 
guese from the coast of Guinea, became common in 
the south of Europe, and a few found their way to 
England. The first Englishman who engaged in this 
business was Sir John Hawkins, who, during the reign 
of Elizabeth, made several voyages to the coast of 
Guinea for negroes, whom he disposed of to the 
Spaniards of the West Indies. The queen granted 
several patents to encourage this traffic ; yet she is 
said to have expressed to Hawkins her hope that the 
negroes went voluntarily from Africa, declaring that 
if any force w^ere used to enslave them, she doubted 
not it would bring down the vengeance of Heaven 
upon those guilty of such wickedness. The newly- 
discovered coasts of America were also visited by 
kidnappers. Few, if any, of the early voyagers scru- 
pled to seize the natives, and to carry them home as 
slaves. Sir Ferdinando Gorges, so active and so 
conspicuous in the early settlement of New England, 
had a number of these captured natives, whom he 
claimed as his property, kept under restraint, and 
employed as guides and pilots. The Mosaic law, 
then recently made familiar by the English transla- 
tion of the Bible, and considered high authority on 
all questions of right, seemed to countenance this 
distinction between Christians and infidels. The 
Jews, according to the Mosaic code, could hold their 
brethren as servants only for a period of seven years, 
or at the utmost, till the next Jubilee, (for it is not 
very easy to reconcile the apparently conflicting pro- 
visions on this subject in Exodus and Leviticus ;) but 
of "the heathen round about," they might buy " bond- 
men, as an inheritance for ever." The practice of 
the early Engfish settlers in America, and their ideas 
of the English law on the subject, corresponded ex- 



180 DESPOTISM 

actly with these Jewish provisions, indeed \vould seem 
to have been regulated by them. Thus they took 
with them, or caused to be brought out, a large num- 
ber of indented Christian servants, whose period of 
bondage was limited to seven years, and who, till 
after the Revolution, constituted a distinct class in 
the community. Indeed, of the white immigrants to 
America preceding that era, the larger portion would 
seem to have arrived there under this servile charac- 
ter. But while the servitude of Christians was thus 
limited, the colonists supposed themselves justified in 
holding negroes and Indians as slaves for life. The 
first English colonists arrived in Virginia in 1607. In 
1620 a Dutch trading vessel entered James' River 
with twenty negroes on board, who were sold to the 
settlers. Other similar importations continued to be 
made from time to time ; but it not being imagined 
that any local legislation was necessary to give to 
the purchasers of these black servants the right to 
hold them and their posterity as bondmen for ever, 
more than forty years elapsed before any notice was 
taken of slaves by the Virginia statutes, as distinct 
from other servants. 

It was not in Virginia, but in New England, that 
the earliest colonial legislation on the subject of 
slavery occurred. The Massachusetts " Body of Lib- 
erties," or " Fundamentals," as they were called, first 
promulgated in 1641, contain the following provision : 
" There shall never be any bond slavery, villeinage, 
nor captivity among us, tmless it be lawful captives 
taken in just wars, and such strangers as willingli/ sell 
themselves, or are sold, unto us.^^ But in thus giving 
an express sanction to negro and Indian slavery, the 
freemen of Massachusetts did not conceive themselves 
to be running at all counter to the law of England, 
to which, by their charter, they were bound to con- 
form, though on ecclesiastical points somewhat in- 
clined to deviate from it. On the contrary, they sup- 
posed themselves to be conforming as well to the 



IN AMERICA. 181 

law of England, as to " the law of God, established 
in Israel." This Massachusetts law, it will be per- 
ceived, not only sanctioned slavery, but also the slave- 
trade. An American historian, always too much a 
panegyrist or an apologist to be implicitly relied on, 
has indeed undertaken to claim for Massachusetts the 
honor of having denounced, at that early day, as 
"malefactors and murderers," those "who sailed to 
Guinea, to trade for negroes "^a claim founded upon 
a misapprehension of a passage in Winthrop's Jour- 
nal. It appears, on the contrary, from other passages 
in Winthrop, that "the trade to Guinea for negroes" 
was recognized as a just and lawful traffic. New 
England vessels, after carrying cargoes of staves to 
Madeira, were accustomed to sail to Guinea for 
slaves, who generally, as there was little or no de- 
mand for them at Boston, were carried to Barba- 
does, or the other English settlements in the West 
Indies, there to be sold. In the particular case above 
referred to, instead of buying negroes, in the regular 
course of the Guinea trade, the Boston crew had 
joined with some Londoners already on the coast, 
and, on pretence of some quarrel with the natives, had 
landed "a murderer," — the expressive name of a 
small piece of cannon, — had attacked a negro village 
on a Sunday^ and after killing many of the inhab- 
itants, had made a few prisoners, of whom two boys 
fell to the share of the Bostonians. A violent quarrel 
between the master, mate, and owners, as to the 
mutual settlement of their accounts, brought out the 
whole history of this voyage before the magistrates, 
one of whom presented a petition to the General 
Court, charging the master and mate, not with having 
" sailed for Guinea to trade for negroes," as the case is 
represented, but with the threefold offence of murder, 
manstealing, and Sabbath-breaking, — the first two 
capital, by the Fundamental Laws of the colony, and 
all three " capital, by the laws of God." It was right 
enough to purchase slaves, but wrong to steal them, 
especially on a Sunday, and to commit murder in 
16 



182 DESPOTISM 

doing so. The kidnapped negroes were ordered to be 
sent back ; but no other punishment was inflicted, the 
court doubting their authority to punish crimes com- 
mitted on the coast of Africa. 

The honor of having made the first American pro- 
test against negro slavery, really belongs not to Mas- 
sachusetts, but to Roger Williams and his fellow- 
settlers at Providence in Rhode Island, exiles and 
refugees from the colony of Massachusetts because 
they had embraced the doctrine of " soul liberty," by 
which they signified perfect freedom of opinion in 
matters of religion. The people of Providence, think- 
ing probably that body liberty was a necessary sup- 
plement to soul liberty, enacted a law in 1652, placing 
" black mankind " on the same level, with regard to 
limitation of service, as white servants, and absolutely 
prohibiting perpetual slavery within their territories. 
Unfortunately for the honor of Rhode Island, this 
law, never in force except in the town of Providence, 
presently fell into abeyance ; and within a century 
not only did negro slavery become common in Rhode 
Island, but its inhabitants engaged in the African 
trade, for the supply of the other colonies. 

In Virginia the ratio of slaves to the white popula- 
tion, though for many years not large, was much 
greater than in New England; but it was not till 
cases arose for which the English common law, as 
the colonists understood it, made no provisions satis- 
factory to the slave-holders, that any distinct mention 
of slavery occurs in the legislation of that colony. 
In the course of forty years, by which time the slaves 
numbered two thousand in a population of forty 
thousand, mulatto children had been born and grown 
to manhood. What should be the condition of these 
children ? 

By the English law, when the fathers were free the 
children were free also. But this did not suit the 
interest of the slave-holders. The mulattoes were 
few, ignorant, and helpless, and the Virginia legisla- 



IN AMERICA. 183 

ture, notwithstanding its acknowledged obligation to 
conform strictly to English law, did not hesitate to 
disregard a great and well-established doctrine of 
that law, and substituting a provision of the civil, that 
is, of the Roman code, to enact — that children should 
follow the condition of the mother; and this principle, 
thus unwarrantably introduced into Virginia in 1662, 
was ultimately adopted, by statute or usage, in all 
the British colonies. 

Another question, not less interesting to the slave- 
holders, presently arose. Of the negroes brought to 
Virginia, some had been converted and baptized, and 
this was the case to a still greater extent with those 
born in the colony. By what right were these Chris- 
tians held as slaves ? 

The law of England, even according to the colonial 
view of it, did not allow the slavery of Christians. It 
was only pagans and infidels who could be enslaved. 
But the Virginia assembly came to the relief of the 
masters ; and with that audacious divsregard of all law 
and all right except its own good pleasure, by which 
slave-holding legislation has ever been characterized, 
they enacted, in utter defiance of the English law, 
— even their own version of it, — that negi'oes convert- 
ed and baptized should not thereby become free. 
This act bears date in 1669. Another act, passed 
the same year, in equal defiance of the English law, 
provided, that killing slaves by extremity of correction 
should not be esteemed felony, " since it cannot be 
presumed that prepense malice should induce any 
man to destroy his own estate." 

For reasons of policy or humanity, it had been pro- 
vided that Indians should not be held as slaves, — a 
provision, whatever the reason of it, which places the 
legislation of Virginia, on this point, in honorable 
contrast to that of New England, where the contrary 
practice prevailed. But did this prohibition extend 
to Indian captives taken in war, elsewhere than in 
Virginia, and brought to that colony for sale ? 

This question w^as settled in 1670, by enacting that 



184 DESPOTISM 

"all servants, 7iot being- Christicms^ imported by ship- 
ping, shall be slaves for their lives," those imported 
by land to serve for a limited time. Freedom had just 
been denied to Christian negroes converted in the col- 
ony, or born there ; but the assembly did not venture to 
usurp any such jurisdiction over stranger Christians. 

As a necessary pendant to the slave code, the sys- 
tem of subjecting the free to disabilities now also 
began. Thus it was enacted in 1670, that negro wo- 
men, though free, should be rated and taxed as " tith- 
ables," that is, should pay a poll tax, exacted in the 
case of whites only from the men. Free negroes and 
Indians were also disqualified to purchase or hold 
white servants. 

These acts, the legislative basis of slavery in Vir- 
ginia, were enacted during the government of Sir 
William Berkeley, well known for his famous apos- 
trophe — " I thank God we have no free schools nor 
printing, and I hope we shall not have these hundred 
years; for learning has brought disobedience, and 
heresy, and sects into the world, and printing has 
divulged them; and libels against the best govern- 
ment. God keep .us from both ! " — Nor was this wish 
uttered in vain. The establishment of slavery secured 
its fulfilment. Virginia has no free schools to this day; 
none, at least, worthy of the name. She has, indeed, 
a few printing-presses ; but they are muzzled, gagged, 
— effectually restrained from libels against " the best 
government " — for such in that state the oligarchy of 
slave-holders is held to be. 

The virtuous resolution of Virginia on the subject 
of Indians did not last long ; nor did freedom from 
schools and printing-presses keep out disobedience and 
rebellion. The immediate cause of Bacon's insur- 
rection, so famous in the colonial annals of Virginia, 
was the refusal of Berkeley to authorize expeditions 
against the Indians, who had lately committed some 
depredations. Berkeley preferred a scheme of defence 
by forts. The colonists alleged that his interest in 
the fur-trade made him too tender of the Indians; 



IN AMERICA. 185 

but a law enacted in 1676, by Bacon's insurgent as- 
sembly, might seem to imply, that the eagerness of 
the colonists for offensive war was not altogether dis- 
interested. Into an act for the prosecution of the 
Indian war a provision was inserted, that Indian 
prisoners might be held as slaves ; and notwithstand- 
ing the repeal, after the suppression of the insurrec- 
tion, of all the other of Bacon's laws, this provision 
was still continued in force. 

In 1682, during Culpepper's administration, the 
slave code of Virginia received some additions. 
Slaves were forbidden to carry arms, offensive or 
defensive ; or to go off their masters plantation, with- 
out a written pass ; or to lift hand against a Chris- 
tian, even in self-defence. Runaways, who refused 
to be apprehended, might be lawfully killed. Already 
had the internal slave-trade begun, — that trade in 
which Virginia still bears so unhappy a part. As 
yet, however, the colony was purchaser, not seller, 
and by a partial repeal of the existing provision in 
favor of stranger Christians, facilities for purchasing 
were extended. The assembly enacted that all ser- 
vants, whether negroes. Moors, mulattoes, or Indians, 
(including those bought of the neighboring or other 
Indian tribes,) brought into the colony by sea or land, 
whether converted to Christianity or not, provided 
they were not of Christian parentage and country y 
might be held as slaves. Yet, with all this eagerness 
for new purchases, the evils of the slave system were 
already felt. The colony was suffering severely from 
an over-production of tobacco ; to such a degree, that 
the poorer free people could scarcely purchase clothes 
for themselves; — an over-production to which, as 
Culpepper stated, in an official report, " the buying of 
blacks had exceedingly contributed." 

In 1691, shortly after the breaking out of the first 
French and Indian war, policy or humanity, or both 
combined, recovered the mastery, and the slavery of 
Indians, sanctioned by statute since the time of 
Bacon's rebellion, was now finally abolished. Such 
16* 



186 DESPOTISM 

at least was the interpretation given by the courts of 
Virginia, subsequently to the revolution, (see Pallas 
Sf aL V. Hill Sf aly 2 Henings' and Muraford's Re- 
ports, 149,) to an act of this date, repealing all 
restraints on traffic with the Indians, and declaring 
that trade thenceforth free and open with "all Indians 
whatsoever." But, too ignorant or too helpless to 
vindicate their rights, " multitudes of the descendants 
of Indians in Virginia," so says Hening, the learned 
and laborious editor of the Virginia statutes, " are 
still unjustly deprived of their liberty," in spite of 
this decision, — one proof, among others, how little 
mere legal right, though officially declared by the 
highest tribunals, avails the feeble and defenceless. 

By the Virginia code, as revised in 1705, " all ser- 
vants imported by sea or land, who were not Chris- 
tians in their native country, (except Turks and Moors 
in amity with her Majesty, and others who can make 
due proof of their being free in England, or any 
other Christian country, before they were shipped in 
order to transportation hither,) shall be accounted and 
be slaves, and as such be here bought and sold, not- 
w^ithstanding a conversion to Christianity afterwards;" 
" all children to be bond or free, accordins: to the 
condition of their mothers." But even in this act, 
under which near half the population of Virginia are 
still held as slaves, the original idea, that no Christian 
could be reduced to slavery, is still sufficiently ap- 
parent. In the case of servants newly brought into 
the colony, religion, not color, nor race, is made the 
sole test of distinction between slavery and indented 
service. Whatever may have been the practice, it 
is plain enough, that under this act, which con- 
tinued unaltered down to the Revolution, and which 
still forms the basis of slave property in Virginia, no 
negro, even, who was a Christian in his native coun- 
try, could, if brought to Virginia, be held there as a 
slave. 

This code of 1705 also provided, that persons con- 
vict in England of crimes punishable with loss of 



IN AMERICA. 187 

life or member, and " all negroes, mulattoes, and 
Indians," should be incapacitated to hold office in the 
colony. White women having bastard children by 
negroes or mulattoes were to pay the parish fifteen 
pounds, or, in default of payment, to be sold for five 
years, the child to be bound out as a servant for 
thirty-one years. " And for a further prevention of 
that abominable mixture and spurious issue, which 
hereafter may increase in this her Majesty's colony 
and dominion, as well by English and other white 
men and women intermarrying with negroes and 
mulattoes," as by unlawful connection with them, 
it was enacted, that any man or woman intermarry- 
ing with a negro or mulatto, bond or free, should be 
imprisoned six months and fined ten pounds, — the 
minister celebrating the marriage to be fined also. 
Thus early was the bugbear cry of " amalgamation '^ 
raised in Virginia. Similar laws enacted in the 
other colonies operated to degrade and keep down the 
colored race, and to prevent the institution of slavery 
from assuming that patriarchal character, by which, 
in other countries, it is greatly softened, and some- 
times has been superseded. 

Nothing, indeed, is more striking than the diflerent 
treatment bestowed by Anglo-American slave-holders, 
especially those of the United States, upon their own 
children by slave mothers, and the behavior of Dutch, 
Spanish, Portuguese, and French slave-holders to- 
wards their children similarly begotten. In the slave- 
holding colonies of these latter nations, that white 
man is regarded as unnatural, mean, and cruel, who 
does not, if his ability permit, secure for his colored 
children emancipation and some pecuniary provision. 
Colored children are not less numerous in the United 
States ; but there conventional decorum forbids the 
white father to recognize his colored offspring at all, 
or to make any provision for them. They are still held 
and sold as slaves ; and among this unfortunate class 
may be found the descendants of more than one 
signer of the Declaration of Independence, patriot 



188 DESPOTISM 

of the Revolution, leading politician, and presidential 
candidate. 

The example of the Jews in their treatment of the 
Canaanites, was cited as good authority in all the 
English colonies for prohibiting intermarriage with 
negroes and Indians ; and for denouncing the mix- 
ture of races as unnatural and wicked. But no law 
could control the appetite of the planters nor prevent 
that intermixture which inevitably takes place, when- 
ever two races are brought into contact, especially if 
one race be held in slavery. That austere morality 
(pretending to be religious,) for which the United 
States are distinguished above all nations on the face 
of the earth, unless indeed the palm in this respect 
ought to be yielded to the mother country, has been 
obliged, in this case, as in others, to content itself, in 
defect of conformity to its rules, with cruel grimace, 
and a lie acted out. Hypocrisy, is said to be the trib- 
ute which vice pays to virtue, — a tribute of which the 
religious treasuries of America are full. The vir- 
tuous man, — southern church-member, or peradven- 
ture minister of the gospel, — expiates his peccadilloes 
with his female slaves, by looking on his own children 
with cold glances, in which no recognition dwells ; 
and as a further proof of his austere morals, oppor- 
tunity offering, he sells them at auction ! 

Yet in Virginia, this antipathy to the mixture of 
races was not and is not carried so far as in some of 
the more southern colonies. The grand child of an 
Indian, the great-great grand child of a negro, all 
the other links being white, become themselves white 
in the eye of the law, and therefore presumably free. 

In Maryland slavery had existed from its first set- 
tlement ; but the oldest statute on the subject bears 
date thirty years afterwards, in 1663, when it was 
enacted, " that all negroes and other slaves within this 
province, and all negroes and other slaves to be here- 
after imported, shall serve during life, and all children 
born of any negro or other slave, shall be slaves as 



IN AMERICA. 189 

their fathers were, for the term of their lives." In 
1715, however, by which time the negroes held in 
bondage composed a fifth part of the population, this 
apparent conformity to the principles of the English 
law of villeinage touching the hereditary descent of 
servitude, was silently dropped. In that year, upon 
occasion of the restoration of the government to the 
Calvert family, the laws of Maryland were revised, 
and the new code provided, " that all negroes and 
other slaves, already imported or hereafter to be im- 
ported into this province, and all children now born 
or hereafter to be born of such negroes and slaves, 
shall be slaves during their natural lives." Upon this 
statute rest all the claims of the colonial slave-holding 
system of Maryland to a legal foundation. 

The " grand model," the first proprietary constitu- 
tion of Carolina, the production of the celebrated 
Locke, drawn up in 1670, contained the following 
clause: "Every freeman of Carolina shall have abso- 
lute power and authority over his negro slaves, of 
what opinion and religion soever." But "the grand 
model," in compliance with the repeated and earnest 
requests of the colonists, was abrogated in 1693, and 
for nineteen years the system of slavery in South 
Carolina remained without any legal basis, except 
that furnished by the mistaken notions of the colonists 
as to the English law. The assembly, however, at 
length thought it necessary to provide some statute 
authority of their own for holding two thirds of the 
population in servitude ; and an act for that purpose, 
passed in 1712, provided, " that all negroes, mulattoes, 
mestizoes, or Indians, which at any time heretofore 
were sold, or now are held or taken to be, or hereafter 
shall be, bought and sold for slaves, are hereby declared 
slaves, to all intents and purposes ; " with exceptions, 
however, in favor of those who have been or shall be, 
"for some particular merit, made or declared free," 
and also of such " as can prove that they ought not 
to be sold as slaves." This extraordinary piece of 



190 DESPOTISM 

legislation, reenacted in 1722, and again in 1735, was 
modified by an act of 1740, as follows : "All negroes, 
Indians, mulattoes, and mustazoes, (free Indians in 
amity with this government, and negroes, mulattoes, 
and mustazoes who are now free, excepted,) who now 
are or shall hereafter be in this province, and all their 
issue and offspring, born or to be born, shall be, and 
they are hereby declared to be and remain for ever 
hereafter, absolute slaves, and shall follow the con- 
dition of the mother, and shall be deemed in law 
chattels personal." In all claims of freedom, the 
burden of proof was to be on the claimant, and it 
was to be always presumed that every negro, Indian, 
mulatto, and mestizo is a slave, unless the contrary 
appear. The word mestizo seems to be employed 
(though sometimes used elsew^here in a different 
sense) to designate the mixed Indian blood ; any ad- 
mixture, however slight, of negro or Indian blood 
being included, according to South Carolina usage, 
under the epithets mulatto and mestizo^ and carrying 
the presumption of slavery with them. This act, 
which forms the legal basis, such as it is, of the 
existing slave-holding system of South Carolina, was 
preceded and followed by all the customary barbarous 
enactments of slave codes, which in South Carolina 
were carried to a degree of unusual ferocity both in 
substance and expression. Yet the South Carolina 
assembly seem to have supposed themselves to be le- 
gislating within the limits of the English law ; for at 
the very same session at which the slave act of 1712 
was enacted, the common law of England was de- 
clared to be in force in South Carolina. 

In North Carolina no colonial act seems ever to 
have given a legislative basis to the authority of the 
master, which rested, and still rests, upon mere cus- 
tom, and the old imaginary right, under the English 
common law, to reduce infidels and their descendants 
to servitude. So far as relates to the slavery of In- 
dians, the Carolinians of both provinces had been from 



IN AMERICA. 101 

the beginning notorious sinners. They had an irre- 
sistible propensity to kidnap the unhappy natives, 
and reduce them to slavery. Indeed, one chief ground 
of quarrel with the proprietaries of the province, grew 
out of eflbrts made by them to put a stop to this 
iniquity. 

Georgia, it is well known, was originally intended 
to be a free colony ; and during the eighteen years that 
its affairs were administered by the Trustees who had 
planted it, slavery was strictly prohibited. But the 
vagabonds from the streets of London, (for such were 
the English settlers in Georgia,) raised a loud outcry 
against this prohibition, ascribing to it the poverty 
and slow progress of the colony, the natural result of 
their own incapacity and idleness. The famous 
Whitefield pleaded with the Trustees in favor of 
slavery, under the old slave-trading pretence of propa- 
gating, by that means, the Christian religion. The 
German Lutherans settled in Georgia long had scru- 
ples ; but they were reassured by the heads of their 
sect in Germany : " If you take slaves in faith, and 
with the intent of conducting them to Christ, the 
action will not be a sin, but may prove a benedic- 
tion." Thus, as usual, the religious sentiment and 
its most disinterested votaries were made the tools of 
worldly selfishness, for the enslavernent and plunder 
of mankind. One of the first acts of the new 
government, which succeeded to the authority of the 
Trustees, (1752,) was, the I'epeal of the prohibition of 
slavery. It was not, however, till thirteen years after- 
wards that the legislature of Georgia reinforced what 
they supposed to be the common law on this subject, 
by positive enactment. In 1765, they copied the 
South Carolina act of 1740; excepting, however, from 
the stern doom of slavery, not only such negroes, 
mulattoes, mestizoes, and Indians as already were free, 
but such also as might afterwards become free ; thus 
acknowledging a possibility of future manumissions, 
which the South Carolina statutes seemed to cut off. 



192 



DESPOTISM 



Such is the legislation, and all the legislation, by 
which it can be pretended that slavery, as it now 
exists in the United States, acquired during the 
colonial times the character and the dignity of a 
Legal Institution. Was this legislation valid ? Could 
it have the effect to legalize slavery in America ? 

As our state legislatures are now restricted in their 
powers by constitutions, state and federal, so the 
colonial legislatures were restricted in their powers 
by the law of England. Contrary to the great prin- 
ciples of that law they could not make any acts. 
This limitation was expressly declared in the colonial 
charters. Thus, for instance, the charter of Maryland 
provided, that all laws to be enacted by the provincial 
legislature " be consonant to reason, and be not re- 
pugnant or contrary, but (so far as conveniently may 
be) agreeable to the laws, statutes, customs, and 
rights of this our kingdom of England." Similar 
provisions are to be found in the charters of Virginia, 
Carolina, and Georgia. It is true, that these charters, 
except that of Maryland, were surrendered or taken 
away, previous to the Revolution. But this proceed- 
ing, so far from extending the authority of the 
colonial legislatures, operated the other way; con- 
formity to the law of England being still more strictly 
demanded in the royal than in the chartered provinces. 
The very commissions of the governors, under the 
authority of which alone the legislative assemblies 
of the crown (or unchartered) colonies had any ex- 
istence, expressly restricted the enactments of those 
assemblies to such acts as "were not repugnant, but 
as near as may be agreeable, to the laws and statutes 
of the kingdom of England." This doctrine of the 
restricted powers of the colonial legislatures was 
perfectly well established, and it has been repeatedly 
recognized by the Supreme Court of the United 
States, as well as by the state courts. No lawyer 
would pretend that any colonial legislature had pow- 
er, for instance, to abolish trial by jury. The limits 
of colonial legislative authority may be well exem- 



IN AMERICA. 193 

plified by a transaction in South Carolina. That 
province being violently distracted by disputes be- 
tween churchmen and dissenters, in 1704 the church- 
men, happening to have a majority of one in the 
assembly, passed an act, by the help of a good quan- 
tity of good liquor, that none but churchmen should 
vote. This act was approved by the proprietaries; 
and as the charter of Carolina reserved no negative 
to the crown, it thus obtained the form of law. But 
the dissenters, indignant at this outrage, sent an agent 
to England, on whose petition the House of Lords, 
swayed by the eloquence of Somers, pronounced this 
disfranchising act unreasonable and contrary to the 
laws of England, of which, since the revolution of 
1789, the toleration of all regular Protestant sects had 
become an established principle; and Queen Anne, 
by the advice of the attorney and solicitor-general, 
issued a proclamation declaring the obnoxious act 
void, because it violated that clause in the charter 
which required the laws of the colony not to contra- 
dict those of England. 
u If the colonial legislatures could not abolish trial 
1^ by jury ; if, after the toleration of all Protestant sects 
y had become the law of England, they had no powder 
^ to enact laws disfranchising any Protestant — had they 
any legal power to establish slavery ? 

Certainly not, if slavery was contrary to the law of 
England. And that it was contrary to the law of 
England we now proceed to show. 

And here again, as in the whole of this discussion, 
it becomes necessary clearly to distinguish between 
law and practice ; between that which might legally 
have been done, and that which actually was done 
without law, or against it. It has already been men- 
tioned, that while the last remnants of the old system 
of villeinage were disappearing, the nascent maritime 
enterprise of England had led to the occasional im- 
portation of the pagan natives of other countries, 
who were claimed and held as slaves. On the trial 
of the impeachment against the judges of the Star 
17 



194 DESPOTISM ^ 

Chamber, ordered by the Long Parliament in 1640, 
and reported in Rushwortli's Collections, a case was 
cited, said to have occm'red in the eleventh year of 
Elizabeth, (1569,) in which " one Cartwright brought 
a slave from Russia, and would scourge him ; for 
which he was questioned, and it was resolved that 
England was too pure an air for a slave to breathe 
in." But the first recorded English case, in which 
the legality of holding men in slavery came in ques- 
tion, was that of Butts v. Penny, decided in 1677, in 
the Court of King's Bench. (2 Levintz, 251 ; 3 Keble, 
785.) Though in form an action of trover, brought 
in London, to recover damages for the taking away 
of ten negroes, this case in fact related to a 
transaction between the parties in India, (see Har- 
grave's statement on the subject, in his published 
argument in the case of Somerset ;) and it being 
found by a special verdict "that the negroes were 
infidels and subjects of an infidel prince, and are 
usually bought and sold in India as merchandise," 
and that the plaintiff bought these, and was in pos- 
session of them till the defendant took them, the 
court held "that being usually bought and sold among 
merchants as merchandise, there might be a property 
in them sufficient to maintain trover." And the same 
doctrine appears also to have been held in the Common 
Pleas in 1694, in the case of Gillp v. Clive, (1 Lord 
Raymond, 147.) But in 1705, in the case of Smith 
V. Gould, (Salkeld, 666; 2 Lord Raymond, 1774,) 
which was also an action of trover for a negro, the 
case of Butts v. Penny was expressly overruled. " The 
common law," said Lord Holt, "takes no notice of 
negroes being different from other men. By the com- 
mon law, no man can have a property in another but 
in special cases, as in a villein, but even in him not to 
kill him ; so in captives taken in war, but the taker 
cannot kill them, but may sell them to ransom them. 
There is no such thing as a slave by the law of Eng- 
land.^'' 

Nor was this the only occasion upon which Lord 



IN AMERICA. 195 

Holt, one of the most illustrious names in English 
jurisprudence, vindicated this principle of the com- 
mon law. In the case of Smith v. Broivn 8f Cooper^ 
(Holt, 495; Salkeld, 666,) the court over which he 
presided refused to sustain an action of assumpsit to 
recover the price of a slave, " because," said Lord 
Holt, " as soon as a negro comes into England he is 
free. One may be a villein in England, but not a 
slave." It was indeed suggested that the decision 
might have been different, had the sale been stated 
in the declaration to have been made in Virginia, 
with an averment that, by the laws of that country, 
negroes were saleable, — " for the laws of England," 
said Lord Holt, " do not extend to Virginia : bein^ a 
conquered country^ their law is what the king pleases, 
and we cannot take notice of it but as set forth." 
This, however, was a view of the relation of the 
mother country to the colonies, and of the rights of 
the inhabitants, the correctness of which (though it 
was held down to Lord Holt's time by the English 
lawyers generally) was never admitted by the col- 
onists themselves, and which, in the course of the 
next half century, as to all the colonies originally 
planted by English emigrants, was, by the general 
consent of the English bench and bar, given up as 
untenable. Nor would even the existence in the crown 
of such an arbitrary power of colonial legislation 
have afforded any legislative basis for slavery to stand 
upon ; for, so far from any authority having been 
given by the crown to the colonial legislatures to 
legalize slavery, it had been expressly provided in all 
the American charters, and in all the instructions to 
the royal governors, that no local laws were to be 
enacted repugnant to those of England ; so that the 
question of the legality of slavery in the colonies 
would still come back to the question of its repug- 
nancy to English jurisprudence. 

Yet notwithstanding the two express decisions above 
cited of the Court of King's Bench, that negro slavery 
was a thing unknown to the English law, which 



196 DESPOTISM 

recognized no distinction between negroes and other 
men, and which had never admitted slavery except 
in the peculiar and now extinct form of villeinage, 
negroes still continued, as before, to be brought to 
England, and there to be held and treated as slaves — 
a practice which, with the growth of the African 
slave trade and the increase of slaves in the colonies, 
became, during the first half of the 18th century, 
more and more frequent. 

The negroes thus imported were too ignorant and 
too helpless to vindicate their own rights ; nor was 
there any thing in the public sentiment of that gross 
age, of which Mammon was the peculiar god, to 
check the growth of this new system of slavery. 
Some little annoyance seems indeed to have been 
occasionally given to the slave-holders, by claims of 
freedom set up on the ground of baptism, or on the 
common law principle of the right of all men to 
liberty; but these claims were met, and to a great 
extent silenced, by a legal opinion obtained in 1729, 
from Sir Philip Yorke and Charles Talbot, (after- 
wards Lord Talbot,) in which " they pledged them- 
selves to the merchants of London to save them 
harmless from all inconvenience " growing out of such 
claims ; — an ex parte opinion to which a judicial sanc- 
tion seemed to be given by Yorke, then become Lord 
Hardwicke, and Chancellor, by his decision in 1749, 
in the case of Pearne v. Lisle, (Ambler, Reports, 75.) 
In that case an application was made for a writ of 
ne exeat regno, a prohibition, that is, to Lisle to leave 
the kingdom, till he had first paid to the plaintiff a 
certain stipulated rent, due for certain negroes hired 
and held as slaves in the island of Antigua, and had 
also returned the negroes; which application Hard- 
wicke declined to grant, on the ground that the plain- 
tiff had a sufficient remedy in the ordinary course of 
law. "I have no doubt," he said, "that trover will 
lie for a negro slave ; it is as much property as any 
other thing. The case in Salkeld, 666, {Smith v. 
Gould,) was determined on the want of a proper de- 



IN AMERICA. 197 

scriptioii. It was trover pro tmo JEthiope vocal, ncg-ro^ 
(Tor one Ethiopian called a negro,) without saying 
slave. The being negro did not necessarily imply 
slave." [Here we have a specimen of the cool assur- 
ance of eminent lawyers in explaining away cases 
which they do not venture to overrule, since it is 
abundantly apparent from the report of the case in 
Salkeld, and still more so from that in Lord Raymond, 
that so far from the decision having been grounded 
on this alleged defect in description, its very basis was 
the fact that the negro was claimed as a slave. Indeed, 
Lord Holt stated in so many words, as the reason of 
the decision, that " there is no such thing as a slave by 
the law of England."] " The reason said at the bar," 
so Lord Hardwicke proceeded, " to have been given 
by Chief Justice Holt as the cause of his doubt," 
[another specimen of bold judicial misrepresentation, 
since it was no doubt of Lord Holt's, but a solemn 
decision of the Court of King's Bench,] "viz., that 
the moment that a slave sets his foot in England he 
becomes free," [this reason was not given in the case 
of Smith V. Gould, but in the other case of Smith v. 
Brown 4* Cooper, which is found indeed on the same 
page in Salkeld,] "has no weight with it, nor can any 
reason be found why they should not be equally so 
when they set foot in Jamaica, or any other English 
plantation. All our colonies are subject to the laws 
of England, although, to some purposes, they have 
laws of their own." [On this point doubtless Hard- 
wicke had the advantage of Holt ; for the opinions of 
the English lawyers, since the English revolution, had 
gradually been brought into coincidence with that of 
the colonists, who had all along claimed that the 
common law was as much in force in the colonies as 
in England.] " There was once a doubt," continued 
the judge, "whether, if they were christened, they 
would not become free by that act ; and there were 
precautions taken in the colonies to prevent them 
from becoming baptized, till the opinion of Lord 
Talbot and myself, then attorney and solicitor-general, 
17* 



198 DESPOTISM 

was taken on that point. We were both of opinion 
that it did not at all alter their state." [The opinion 
indeed went much further, but the judge perhaps did 
not think it decorous to mention the pledge which he 
had given to the London slave-holders to save them 
harmless from all claims of freedom.] " There were 
formerly villeins or slaves in England, and these of 
two sorts, regardant and in gross; and although tenures 
are taken away, there are no laws that have destroyed 
servitude absolutely. Trover might have been brought 
for a villein. If a man were to come into a court of 
record and confess himself villein to another, (which 
was one way of being a villein,) what the conse- 
quence would be I would not say, but there is no law 
to aboHsh it at this time." Such is the reasoning, 
and all the reasoning, upon which Lord Hardwicke, 
sitting as an equity judge, undertook to overturn two 
solemn decisions of the King's Bench on a point of 
common law. Villeinage, though it had died away 
and disappeared, had not been formally abolished ; 
and therefore negro slavery, a relation wholly different 
in its origin and incidents, agreeing with villeinage 
only in the fact of involving personal servitude — a 
relation introduced within two or three centuries, 
quite within the time of legal memory, and without 
any basis or foundation, except the convenience and 
gain of certain London merchants — this relation, by 
some unexplained transfusion, had inherited all the 
legal character of villeinage ! There was no law to 
prevent a man from going into court and confessing • 
himself the villein of another, and therefore — there was 
no law to prevent London merchants from holding 
negroes in slavery against their will! 

The personal character of a judge will often throw 
no little light upon his judicial opinions, especially 
those in which general principles are involved. 
Hardwicke, we are told by Lord Campbell, in his 
Lives of the Chancellors, was " the most consummate 
judge who ever sat in the Court of Chancery," the 
" greatest contributor to the English equity code,"— 



IN AMERICA. 199 

not any very high commendation, perhaps, with those 
who have had much experience of chancery suits. 
But the character of a "consummate judge" has 
too often been obtained by a ready ingenuity in giving 
plausible reasons to sustain power against right, or 
in defect of plausible reason, by a bold effrontery in 
trampling under foot the weak and helpless, for the 
benefit and convenience of the rich and powerful. 
That there was nothing in Lord Hardwicke's personal 
character to deter him from such a course, but much 
to prompt him to it. Lord Campbell himself shall be 
our witness. " His career was not checkered by any 
youthful indiscretions or generous errors. He ever had 
a keen and steady eye to his own advantage, as well 
as to the public good. [Is there not a little irony in 
this last clause ?] Amid the aristocratic connections 
which he formed, he forgot the companions of his 
youth, and his regard for the middle classes of society, 
from which he sprang, cooled down to indifference. 
He became jealous of all who could be his rivals for 
power, and he contracted a certain degree of selfish- 
ness and hardness of character which excited much 
envy ['?] and ill will amid the flatteries which sur- 
rounded him." His first patron, for whom he assidu- 
ously worked, and by whose partial favor he was 
brought into notice, was the Earl of Macclesfield, 
that "trafficker in judicial robes, and robber of widows 
and orphans," who was afterwards impeached and 
found guilty of corruption. He then attached him- 
self to the Duke of Newcastle, who, in a long political 
career, endeavored to make up for personal imbecility 
by the freest use of patronage and money. " The 
best thing that can be remembered of the chancellor," 
eays Horace Walpole, "is his fidelity to his patron; 
for let the Duke of Newcastle betray whom he would, 
the chancellor always stuck to him in his perfidy, and 
was only not false to the falsest of mankind I " Such 
was precisely the sort of "consummate judge" from 
whom might have been anticipated an attempt to 
give to the enslavement of man a character of legality. 



200 DESPOTISM 

What sympathy for the mere laborers could be felt 
by one who, engrossed by his aristocratic connections, 
had become coldly indifferent even to the middle 
classes, from whence he sprang ? 

But in spite of the glosses of Lord Hardwicke, and 
the increasing number of slaves in England, there 
were still those who felt and those who held that 
Lord Holt's version of the common law was the true 
one. An attempt having been made in 1762, in the 
case of Shanley v. Hervey^ (3 Eden's Reports, 126,) be- 
fore Lord Hardwicke' s successor as chancellor, Lord 

. Northington, characterized by Lord Eldon as " a great 
lawyer, and very firm in delivering his opinions," 
to appropriate to the use of a pretended master a gift 
or legacy to a negro, he indignantly dismissed the 
bill with the exclamation — " As soon as a man puts 
foot on English ground he is free. A negro may 
maintain an action against his master for ill usage, 
and may have a habeas corpus if restrained of his 
liberty." The famous Granville Sharpe embraced 
this opinion with so much enthusiasm as in fact to 

•devote his life to its vindication. Many cases, through 
his agency, were brought before the courts; and 
though often foiled, he succeeded at last in obtaining 
for this great question a solemn rehearing and a final 
decision. 

James Somerset, an African by birth, carried to 
Virginia as a slave, and purchased there by James 
Stewart, had been brought from Virginia to England, 
where he refused to serve any longer, in consequence 
of which Stewart seized him, and put him on board a 
ship to be sent to Jamaica. Being taken before 
Lord Mansfield (1771) on a writ of habeas corpus^ and 
these facts appearing on the return, the question was 
referred to the full Court of King's Bench, before which 
it was argued at different times by five lawyers re- 
tained by Sharpe, while two of the most eminent 
counsel of the day (Wallace and Dunning) appeared 
on the other side. 

Mansfield was endowed with a warmth of senti- 



IN AMERICA. 201 

ment, a sympathy with humanity, and a philosophical 
spirit, which, in giving a vitality to his legal learning 
and abilities, has elevated him high over the heads 
of so many other "consummate lawyers." Yet he 
was not celebrated either for intrepidity of spirit, or 
for any special enthusiasm in behalf of personal liber- 
ty. Here was an opportunity for the establishment 
of a great principle ; but an opportunity which he did 
not court, and from which indeed he strove to escape. 
He was not insensible to the wealth and social stand- 
ing of the parties interested as slave-holders, and he 
attempted to get rid of this case, as he had done of 
several similar ones, by urging the settlement of it by 
an agreement between the parties. The decision 
seems indeed to have been once or twice postponed, 
to give Stewart an opportunity to act upon the hint, 
that if he would manumit Somerset the case might 
be ended in that way, without any formal decision, 
which Mansfield openly expressed his anxiety to avoid. 
If the decision went against the master, it would 
overturn the established practice and prevailing ideas 
of the last fifty years, backed by the legal opinion of 
"two of the greatest men" — such were the terms in 
which Lord Mansfield referred to Yorke and Talbot — 
" of this or any other time."* But on the other hand 
was the extreme difficulty of adopting the relation of 
slavery as it existed in the colonies, without adopting 
it in all its consequences, many of which were " abso- 
lutely contrary to the municipal law of England.'* 
" The setting fourteen or fifteen thousand men " — for 
that had been stated by the counsel for the claimant 
as the estimated number of negro slaves in England 
— " at once loose by a solemn opinion " was " very 
disagreeable in the effects it threatened." "Fifty 
pounds" — the estimate of Stewart's counsel — "may 

* Yet in the course of tlie argument, he had spoken of their opin- 
ion above referred to with no great respect, as a case «' upon a pe- 
tition in Lincoln's Inn Hall, after dinner, therefore probably might 
not be taken with much accuracy, as he believed was not imuBual 
at that hour." See Loff 's Reports. 



202 DESPOTISM 

not be a high price. Then a loss follows to the pro- 
prietors of about <£ 700,000 sterling. How would the 
law stand in respect of their settlement, their wages ? 
How many actions for any slight coercion by the 
master ? " 

But though these prudential considerations made 
the timid Mansfield anxious to escape a formal judg- 
ment, they did not alter his opinion of the law. 
" We cannot, in any of these points, direct the law ; 
the law must direct us." " If the parties will have 
judgment, fiat justicia mat ccelum — let justice be done 
whatever be the consequence." At the same time he 
suggested, as a consolation to the slave-holders, " an 
application to parliament, if the merchants think the 
question of great commercial concern," as " the best, 
and perhaps only, method of settling the question for 
the future," — a suggestion, however, upon which, in 
the existing state of public sentiment, the London 
slave-holders did not venture to act. 

At last, after several postponements, as Stewart 
declined to terminate the case by manumitting Somer- 
set, Mansiield proceeded to render judgment; which 
he did very briedy ; and yet, as his peculiar manner 
was, in terms sutficiently comprehensive not only to 
decide the case before him, but to establish a principle 
for the decision of other cases. 

" We pay all due attention," he said, *' to the opin- 
ion of Sir Philip Yorke and Lord Talbot, whereby 
they pledged themselves to the British planters for all 
the legal consequences of slaves coming over to this 
kingdom, or being baptized, recognized by Lord 
Hardwicke, sitting as chancellor," in the case of 
Pearne v. Lisle. " The only question before us is, 
whether the cause on the return is sufficient. If it is, 
the negro must be remanded ; if it is not, he must be 
discharged. The return states that the slave departed 
and refused to serve, whereupon he was seized to be 
sold abroad. So high an act of dominion must be 
recognized hy the law of the country where it is used. 
The power of a master over his slave has been exceed- 



IN AMERICA. 203 

mgly different in different countries. The state of 
slavery is of such a nature^ that it is incapable of being- 
introduced on any reasons, moral or political, but only 
by positive laiv, ivhich preserves its force long after the 
reasons, occasions, and time itself from whence it was 
created, is erased from memory. It is so odious that 
nothing can be suffered to support it but positive law. 
Whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from 
the decision, I cannot say this case is allowed or ap- 
proved by the law of England, and therefore the black 
must be discharged." 

It is very true that this decision is limited in its 
terms to the case of persons claimed as slaves within 
the realm of England, that being the particular case 
before the court. It is also true that the counsel for 
Somerset, conscious of the pecuniary influence weigh- 
ing against their client, and anxious to limit that 
influence as much as possible, were very careful not 
to question the legality of slavery in the colonies. 
But as all the colonial assemblies were specially re- 
stricted, either by charter or the royal commissions 
■under which they met and legislated, to the enactment 
of laws not repugnant to those of England, how 
could those assemblies be competent to legalize a 
condition, many of the consequences of which were 
pronounced by Lord Mansfield "absolutely contrary" 
to English law ? — and did it not follow, as one of the 
"inconveniences" of that decision, as Hardwicke had 
suggested it would, that slavery, illegal in England, 
was also illegal in the English colonies ? 

To evade this conclusion, the omnipotence of par- 
liament was invoked, as having, at least by way of 
inference and recognition, legalized slavery in Amer- 
ica ; for which purpose several acts were cited re- 
lating to the African trade, particularly that of 9 and 
10 Wil. III. ch. 26 ; also the act of 1732, for the 
speedy recovery of debts in the colonies. The first 
of these acts plainly speaks of negroes as a species 
of merchandise, the export of which from the African 
coast in British ships was particularly favored, by 



204 DESPOTISM 

their exemption from a duty of ten per cent., imposed, 
for the sustentation of the West African forts, on all 
exports from that coast, "negroes excepted." The 
great object of the other act was, to make real estate 
in the colonies liable to be levied upon for debts the 
same with personal property; and as some of the 
colonies, to protect the planters against their creditors, 
had declared negroes to be real estate, such negroes 
too were made by this act seizable for debt along 
with the lands to which they were attached. But so 
great an innovation upon the common law as the 
legalization of negro slavery, is not to be sustained by 
a mere statute implication ; especially when the pro- 
visions relied upon do not necessarily imply any thing 
more than what the long-established common law had 
fully recognized. The importation into the colonies, 
and the sale there, of servants, to be held for a limited 
period, to be esteemed during that period the goods 
and chattels of the purchaser, to be sold at his pleas- 
ure, and liable to be seized for his debts, was un- 
doubtedly permitted by the law of England, Such 
servants were regularly imported from England, 
Scotland, Ireland, and Germany, in numbers at least 
equal to the negroes; nor is there any thing more 
than this necessarily implied in the acts above cited. 
There is nothing to show that parliament intended to 
place Africans in this respect on a different ground 
from other men. Such, indeed, would seem to have 
been the view taken of these acts by Lord Mansfield. 
The exportation of negroes was not limited to Amer- 
ica. In the act above referred to for regulating the 
African trade, England was mentioned in precisely 
the same terms as the colonies, as one of the places 
to which African merchandise, including negroes, 
might be brought; and the holding of negroes in 
slavery, so far as that act goes, was just as much 
authorized by it in the one country as in the other. 
But though these statutes were cited in Somerset's 
case. Lord Mansfield allowed them no weight. And in 
the case of Forbes v. Cochrane^ (2 Barnwell & Cress- 



IN AMERICA. 205 

well, 443,) decided in 1824 in the Court of King's 
Bench, Chief Justice Best expressly stated " that he 
did not feel himself fettered by any thing expressed 
in either of these acts, [the acts, that is, in relation 
to the trade with Africa,] in pronouncing the same 
opinion on the rights growing out of slavery as if they 
had never passed." 

There is indeed a still further distinction as to the 
case of those held as slaves in the colonies, apt to be 
overlooked in these discussions, but which cannot be 
disregarded, at least by those who coincide with 
Lords Camden and Chatham and the Continental 
Congresses of 1765 and 1774, in their views of colo- 
nial and metropolitan relations. Whatever the con- 
dition might legally have been of those unfortunate 
aliens purchased in Africa as slaves, and brought to 
America and sold to the planters; suppose even that 
it might have been consonant to English law to hold 
them as servants for life, as Blackstone seems to have 
imagined ; yet the case was very different as to their 
children born in the colonies, who were in every 
respect, according to the views above stated, natural- 
born subjects of the King of England, and entitled to 
all the rights of Englishmen, from which not even 
parliament itself, and much less the colonial legisla- 
tures, had any power to exclude them. Such was 
the ground taken by James Otis, in his famous 
pamphlet on Colonial Rights^ published (1764) in 
anticipation of the Stamp Act, and justly regarded 
as the first trumpet blast of the American Revolution ; 
in which pamphlet he laid it down as a fundamental 
proposition, the basis of all his reasoning, that all the 
colonists, whether " black or white," born in America, 
were free born British subjects, entitled to all the 
essential rights of such. 

The decision in Somerset's case is sometimes 
spoken of, even by judges on the bench, as having 
changed the law of England. But such a view of it 
is entirely false. Judgments of courts do not change 
the law. They are not the law, but only evidence of 
18 



206 DESPOTISM 

the law. The Somerset case did not make nor alter 
the law of England ; it only freed it from the false 
glosses with which ignorance, avarice, violence, and the 
practice of two or three hundred years had obscured 
, it. It did but repeat, and now, from the altered state 
JP of the public sentiment, in a more authoritative 
and effectual tone, the very declaration which Lord 
Holt, three quarters of a century before, had then 
ineffectually made, — that the law of England did not 
allow the reducing men to slavery, and did not regard 
negroes as any way different, in this respect, from 
other men. Such being the fact, there surely existed 
no power in any colonial assembly, restricted as all 
those assemblies were to the enactment of laws " not 
repugnant to those of England," to legalize a con- 
dition many of the consequences of which were, in 
the words of Lord Mansfield, " absolutely contrary" to 
English law. 

But it is not by the mere declaration of what the 
law is — especially where there is no spirit or dispo- 
sition on the part of those in authority to enforce or 
even to recognize it — that wrong is ever to be rectified ; 
nor has it been in America alone that courts and law- 
yers have trampled law as well as justice under foot, 
in their zeal to gain the favor and to conform to the 
wishes of those possessed of wealth and of social and 
political inff,uence. The American Declaration of 
Independence, which took place within a little more 
than four years after the decision in Somerset's case, 
removed the colonies, now become the United State?, 
from all further control by English tribunals or Eng- 
lish authority; but there were several other colonial 
dependencies of the British empire, in which, for 
more than sixty years after that decision, negro slavery 
continued in full energy, too strong, too rampant, for 
any English judge to dare to apply to it the principle 
of the Somerset case ; since here it was not a ques- 
tion of £700,000 and fourteen thousand negroes, but 
of a sum and a number near a hundred times as 
great ; the difficulty of redressing wrongs unfortunate- 



IN AMERICA. 207 

ly increasing in something like geometrical proportion 
to the number of those whom they crush. Even such 
a judge as Chief Justice Best, while giving such au- 
thority to the case of Somerset as to hold, (in Forbes 
V. Cochrane^ above referred to,) that slaves flying from 
a Spanish colony, and taking refuge on board a 
British ship on the high seas, thereby became free, 
was very careful to add, " There may possibly be a 
distinction between the situation of these persons, and 
that of slaves coming from our own islands, for we 
have unfortunately recognized the existence of slavery 
there, though we have never recognized it in our own 
country." Indeed, he specially desired that nothing 
he might say in that case [and he said several very 
fine things] " might be considered as trenching on the 
local rights of the West India proprietors to the 
services of their slaves in that country." 

Nor when, at last, the question of the legality of 
slavery in the colonies was distinctly raised before an 
English court, (unfortunately not a court of common 
law,) did the slave-holders fail to find, in the person 
of Lord Stowell, another " consummate judge," not 
less ready than Lord Hardwicke had been, in his day, 
to give to a cruel and oppressive custom all th^ 
character and attributes of a solemn legislative au- 
thority. The case of The Slave Grace^ (2 Haggard's 
Admiralty Reports, 106,) decided in 1827, is indeed 
most instructive, as showing to what extent your 
"consummate lawyer" will go, on behalf of the 
interests, or what he esteems such, of property and 
commerce, no matter at what expense of human 
agony, and disregard of the plainest principles of 
justice. Set aside the state of Mississippi, under the 
chief justiceship of the notorious Sharkey, and the 
circuits of Judges Grier and Curtis, of the United 
States Supreme Court, and it would be impossible to 
match that casein all the American Reports. Indeed, 
the main point decided in it has been ruled the other 
way in some half dozen American slave-holding 
states, in all, in fact, Mississippi excepted, in which 



208 DESPOTISM 

the point has been directly raised. For it is to be 
noted, that, until quite recently, the courts even of the 
slave-holding states have exhibited no little alacrity 
in giving freedom to individuals, and even to families 
claimed to be held as slaves, speaking out in such 
cases very warmly for liberty, and exhibiting evident 
gusto and satisfaction in knocking off the fetters. It 
J has only been in cases likely to prove too sweeping 
as precedents, cases involving principles comprehen- 
sive enough to give freedom to large numbers, that 
this judicial tendency in favor of liberty has been 
checked. The case above referred to was that of a 
girl born in slavery in the Island of Antigua. She had 
been brought to England, but whether from ignorance 
or want of inclination had failed to claim her liberty 
there, and had returned to Antigua, where she was 
still held as a slave. The circumstance, however, that 
she had been in England, was presently set up as 
having made her free ; and since the local courts would 
not recognize the claim, to give her and others in her 
condition the chance of an English adjudication, with- 
out the heavy expenses of an ordinary appeal, (if 
indeed it were possible, by the ordinary course of 
appeal, to carry such a case to England,) she was 
libelled in the Vice Admiralty Court of Antigua, as 
having been introduced into that island as a slave, 
contrary to the acts abolishing the slave trade ; and 
the local admiraltyjudge having decided against her, 
the case came before Lord Stowell by appeal. It was 
but a decent regard for appearances for an English 
judge in Lord StowelPs position, and especially one 
about to make such a decision as he did, to indulge 
in some flourishes on the subject of liberty, which his 
lordship did very cheaply, and with a sort of judicial 
demagoguism sufficiently common both in England 
and America, by breaking out into a burst of indig- 
nation that a person claiming to be free should suffer 
herself to be libelled as an illegally introduced slave ! 
— when, without resorting to any such humiliating 
method of vindicating her rights, she had nothing 



IN AMERICA. 209 

to do but to claim to be free, and to act as such I 
As if such a claim made in Antigua, as it then was, 
would have availed poor Grace! As if my lord did 
not perfectly well know why a procedure in the 
Admiralty Court had been resorted to ! 

Stowell had gained the reputation of a "consum- 
mate judge," by a series of learned and ingenious 
decisions, by which, during the war between France 
and England, he had zealously, and, according to a 
common enough view of such matters, patriotically la- 
bored to secure to the merchants of England a much 
coveted monopoly of ocean commerce — an object 
which he had accomplished by giving to a few ques- 
tionable old precedents, and especially to an arbitrary 
rule introduced by England during the war of 1756, 
the character of the Law of Nations, and on that 
ground, justifying the wholesale capture and plunder 
ot" American and other neutral vessels, trading be- 
tween France and her colonies. As was natural 
enough for such a judge, he did not at all share in the 
sentiment then fast spreading in England against 
negro slavery ; indeed, he was eager to give to that 
crumbling institution all the support of his profession- 
al reputation. Yet he felt obliged to admit, however 
good a thing slavery might be, that the practice of 
dragging back into it those who had once enjoyed the 
blessings of freedom, had been attended by lamenta- 
ble consequences. " Persons, though possessed of in- 
dependence and affluence, acquired in the mother 
country, have, upon a return to the colonies, been held 
and treated as slaves, and the unfortunate descend- 
ants of these persons, if born within the colony, have 
come slaves into the world, and, in some instances, 
have suffered all the consequences of real slavery." 
Yet in the eyes of such a man as Stowell, what 
were these agonies of oppressed humanity in compe- 
tition with the necessity of giving to the holders of 
property a sentiment of security, and especially to 
the holders of property in men, attacked at that mo- 
ment by so many wicked or thoughtless abolitionists ? 
18* 



210 DESPOTISM 

— for it was in the midst of the anti-slavery agitation 
in England, that this judgment was rendered. 

Yet, if Grace had left England a free British sub- 
ject, as the decision in Somerset's case would seem to 
imply, by what process, on landing in Antigua, had 
she been transformed into a slave? The case of 
Somerset was directly opposed to the decision which 
Stowell's antecedent and present associations and 
opinions had predetermined him to make; and, there- 
fore, it was necessary to explain that decision away. 
That Somerset had been properly discharged, he did 
not venture to deny, but the reasons given by Lord 
Mansfield for that discharge he set aside altogether. 
Putting those reasons aside, that case, according to 
Lord Stowell, went no further than this : " The slave 
continues a slave, though the law of England re- 
lieves from the rigor of that code while he is in Eng- 
land, and that is all that it does." All that had been 
said about a slave not being able to breathe in Eng- 
land, was a mere flourish of rhetoric, and as soon as 
Grace returned to Antigua, her master, freed from the 
annoying interference of the English law, regained 
all his rights I 

But supposing that to be so, yet by what law of 
Antigua was Grace held as a slave? The legislature 
of Antigua had no pov/er to make laws repugnant 
to those of England ; and not only had they no power, 
but taking it for granted that slavery was recognized 
by the common law, they had allowed it to rest on 
that basis alone. Not only was there no statute of 
Antigua expressly authorizing the slavery of negroes, 
but by a statute passed in 1705, and never repealed, 
the common law of England was declared to be the 
law of that colony, except when altered by written 
laws of the island, and " all customs and pretended 
customs and usage, contradictory thereto," were pro- 
nounced "illegal, null, and void." Here was fresh 
and urgent occasion for attacking the reasoning of 
Lord Mansfield in Somerset's case ; for where, so far 
as Antigua was concerned, was that basis of positive 



IN AMERICA. 211 

law which he had demanded as the only one upon 
which so "odious" an institution could be made to 
stand ? — an institution which he had pronounced 
incapable of being introduced upon any reasons moral 
or political, but only by positive law. 

Lord Hardwicke, in his attempt to legalize slavery, 
had seemed disposed to represent it as a mere con- 
tinuation of the system of villeinage. Lord Stowell 
did not fail to perceive the weakness of that position; 
for if villeinage was too odious a system to stand 
against the public sentiment even of the fifteenth 
century, how could any mere copy or imitation of it 
in the shape of negro slavery be expected to be tol- 
erated in the nineteenth ? Alarmed apparently lest 
the same strict constructions and legal principles • 
which had operated to abolish villeinage might be 
brought to bear against the enslavement of negroes, 
he labored to distinguish and exalt that " as part of a 
system extending into foreign countries and trans- 
marine possessions," and therefore not to be subject- 
ed to the narrow constructions and local humanities 
of English jurisprudence. The English sailors have 
a proverb, " No Sunday off soundings," and exactly 
in the spirit of that proverb seem to be conceived 
many of the decisions of the English Admiralty Courts, 
and indeed much of the foreign policy of Great Britain, 
of which the Chinese opium war may be cited as a 
flagrant instance. Yet the Law of Nations, a mantle 
wide enough, as it proved in Lord Stowell's hands, to 
cover such a multitude of wrongs, could not by itself 
alone sustain slavery in an English colony. In the 
particular case of Antigua, it became necessary not 
only to set aside the reasons given by Lord Mans- 
field for his decision in the Somtrset case, but to 
take issue on the very turning point of those reasons. 
Lord Stowell therefore, under the form of modestly 
questioning, proceeded to deny, point blank, the fun- 
damental proposition of Lord Mansfield, that to up- 
hold slavery some " positive law " must be shown 
for it. " Ancient custom," so he suggested, " is gen- 



212 DESPOTISM 

erally recognized as a just foundation of all law." 
" A great part of the common law itself, in all its re- 
lations, has little other foundation than this same 
custom." " That villeinage which is said to be the 
prototype of slavery, had no other origin than ancient 
custom." And on the strength of these observations, 
he held slavery to be legalized in iVntigua by a 
usage not two hundred years old, (since Antigua was 
first settled in 1632,) and though the local statutes of 
the island, coinciding in this particular with the met- 
ropolitan authority, expressly denied any validity to 
any usage not conformable to the law of England ! 

These ideas, upon which Lord Stowell thus at- 
tempted to base the legality of negro slavery in the 
colonies, and which would just as well have sustained 
it in England, though not unusual on both sides of 
the Atlantic, involve, however, a total ignorance or 
disregard of the perfectly well established doctrine of 
the English courts as to the nature and origin of law. 
Acc:ording to that doctrine, there are only two possi- 
ble sources of law; viz., 1st, enlightened reason, 
equity, natural justice ; and 2dly, positive legis- 
lation. The character and force of law is never con- 
ceded to customs and usages unsustained by positive 
enactments, except so far as they appear to corre- 
spond to the dictates of enlightened reason, equity, 
and natural justice, and not to contradict any posi- 
tive law. When the common lawyers first began to 
consider law in a systematic and scientific point of 
view, they found, indeed, the institutions of the state, 
and the proceedings, maxims, and methods of the 
courts, to be principally based upon certain ancient 
usages, as to the origin of which no record or memo- 
rial existed. But whatever the historical fact might 
have been, (as to which we have no resource beyond 
probable conjecture,) the English courts of common 
law never based the authority of these ancient usages, 
institutions, and maxims on custom, or the mere lapse 
of time during which they had prevailed, nor on the 
inconvenience of disturbing them. On the other 



IN AMERICA. 



21:3 



hand, they constantly represented these usages and 
institutions, including among the rest the preroga- 
tives of the king, the authority of parliament, the 
jurisdiction of the courts, the privileges of the peers, 
the rights of the commons, and the servitude of the 
villeins, as being founded, in the words of Lord 
Mansfield, on " positive law " — that is, on formal stat- 
utes and precise enactments, of which, however, from 
the lapse of time and the dilapidation of records, no 
memorial any longer existed, except in the general 
usage of the realm and the memory of the courts. 
But thus to invest a usage or institution with the 
character of " positive law," (which the courts held 
themselves bound to carry out without stopping to 
inquire into its justice, expediency, or reasonable- 
ness, of which the legislature was admitted to be the 
sole authoritative judge,) that usage or institution 
must, like the peerage, villeinage, or the rights of pri- 
mogeniture, be traceable back to a time beyond the 
period of legal memory, which period was held by 
the courts to commence with the reign of Richard 
I., A. D. 1189, very few records of an earlier date 
being in existence. As to customs and usages of a 
more modern date, the origin of which could be 
shown, they must depend exclusively for their sanc- 
tion upon their reasonableness, — their conformity, 
that is, to natural equity and justice, and to an en- 
lightened view of the public welfare ; and it was still 
further necessary that they should not conflict with 
any rights already established by law, that is, 
that they should conform to the general policy of the 
realm. 

Undoubtedly the modern common law consists to a 
great extent of modern customs introduced by the 
growing exigencies of society, and confirmed and 
sanctioned by the courts. Nobody ever did more, nor 
indeed any thing near so much, as Lord Mansfield 
himself, thus to amplify and enrich the common law, 
grafting upon it the best portions of the civil law 
and of the commercial codes of modern Europe. But 



214 DESPOTISM 

negro slavery being an institution neither reasonable, 
just, nor tending to the good of society, nor to the 
mutual benefit of the parties concerned, and being 
moreover, in many of its consequences, " absolutely 
contrary" to English law, it was impossible for Lord 
Mansfield to hold either that the pecuniary con- 
venience of the London merchants, or that the two 
or three hundred years during which such slavery had 
prevailed, could make it legal. And if negro slavery 
could not be legalized by mere usage in England, 
neither could it be so legalized in the colonies. That 
which the colonial assemblies had no power to do di- 
rectly, could not be done indirectly by the mere act 
of the inhabitants. Even admitting that negro sla- 
very, as Lord Stowell seems strongly disposed to argue, 
though a bad and unreasonable custom in England, 
was a good and reasonable one in the colonies, — in fact 
he secretly thought that slavery was a good custom 
every where ; nor on any other assumption could it 
have been logically possible to render the judgment 
which he did; — yet even that admission could not 
alter the case ; because whether good or bad, yet 
being an institution "repugnant" to the law of Eng- 
land, neither the legislation of the assemblies nor the 
usage of the planters could give to it, in the colonies, 
the character of law. 

The difl['erence between Lord Mansfield and Lord 
Stowell is, it will be perceived, absolute and funda- 
mental. According to Lord Mansfield and the com- 
mon lawyers, injustice never can be clothed with the 
character of law by mere usage, however long con- 
tinued, nor in any way, except by some positive act 
of the governing power. Some legislator must be 
found on whom the responsibility of such injustice 
can be fixed. Some positive law must be pointed 
out by which this privileged wrong is expressly and 
plainly authorized in its whole extent. Here is surely 
a great check to oppression, the greatest perhaps 
which existing circumstances admit of — a check which 
Lord Stowell and the lawyers of his school seek to 



IN AMERICA. 210 

break down. Besides the government openly legis- 
lating, and thus in the face of public opinion assum- 
ing the responsibility for whatever it enacts, the dread 
authority of making unjust laws is to be conferred 
in addition upon private interest working secretly in 
the dark ! Whatever advantages superior force and 
cunning may, as in the case of negro slavery, have 
been able to take and to keep for a generation or two 
over weakness and ignorance, shall thereby become 
law! Surely a most alarming doctrine, tending to 
create the most terrible of tyrannies, infinitely more to 
be dreaded, infinitely more fruitful in wrong than 
crime and violence ever could be if compelled to 
show themselves and to act openly in the face of the 
world I No other comparison will suit such legisla- 
tion but that of the snake swallowing down by im- 
perceptible degrees his crushed and slavered victim. 

This doctrine of the power of possession and usage 
to give legal validity to slavery is the natural conse- 
quence of confounding men with things. With re- 
spect to things, that which the peace of the community 
chiefly requires, that in which the interests of com- 
merce are concerned, is, that every thing should have 
a certain definite owner; and therefore public con- 
venience imperatively demands that the neglect, for 
a certain period, to vindicate one's claim to the prop- 
erty of a thing should be esteemed a relinquishment 
of that claim in favor of the person already in posses- 
sion. But this doctrine can have no application 
whatever to the case of men, in whom the English 
law does not admit any power to convey away or sur- 
render up even their own liberty, and still less that 
of their unborn children ; and whom therefore no 
mere lapse of time can ever bar from claiming their 
personal freedom whenever they feel the impulse to 
do so. 

In the particular case of the British, slave-holding 
colonies, it may have been very tru^, as Lord Stowell 
suggests, (and the same idea is dropped also by Chief 
Justice Best in the case of Forbes v. Cochrane^) thai 



216 DESPOTISM 

a sovereign state like England, looking quietly on, 
and allowing slavery to prevail without law and 
against law in her colonies, was quite as guilty of 
the wrong as the colonies themselves, if not indeed 
more so. That might have been a very good reason 
why the act of parliament about which Lord Mans- 
field had spoken, (though perhaps in a somewhat dif- 
ferent sense,) when it came at length to be enacted — 
and its passage was probably hastened by Lord 
Stowell's decision — took upon the mother country 
a large share of the burden of the abolition of sla- 
very. And the same reasoning might be forcibly 
urged as between the slave states and the free states 
of our American confederacy. But the question of 
the relative guilt of those who trampled on the weak 
and of those who connived at it, and of the distribu- 
tion between them of the burden of restitution, can- 
not in any way affect the legal status of those who, 
in the mean time, are deprived of their rights ; nor can 
any distribution of the blame of it give to that dep- 
rivation any of the qualities of legality. 

Overlooking this undeniable fact, the apologists 
for American slavery, not content with insisting that 
the mother country connived at, a.id indeed positive- 
ly authorized, its original introduction, have gone still 
further, and have boldly asserted that slavery was 
forced upon the colonies by the mother country, 
against their will, and in spite of their efforts to pre- 
vent it. Bancroft, in his History, has labored, with 
his usual patriotic partiality, to give color to this 
charge, which originated with Jefferson, and which 
made its first appearance in the declamatory intro- 
duction to the first constitution of Virginia. Jeffer- 
son wished to repeat it, in a still more direct and em- 
phatic form, in the Declaration of Independence ; but 
it was rather too much to ask the delegates from 
Georgia to denounce the slave-trade as "a cruel war 
against human nature, violating its most sacred 
rights of life and liberty." Having struggled against, 
and finally defeated, the attempt to make her a free 



IN AMERICA. 217 

community, how could Georgia charge the mother 
country with forcing upon her that " execrable com- 
merce," the slave-trade ? Jefferson hated Britain, he 
hated slavery, and he wished to bring these hatreds 
into juxtaposition ; but to do so required a very ex- 
cited imagination. Had any colony ever prohibited 
the introduction of negroes ; had any colony ever 
enacted that negroes should stand on the same 
ground as white servants, and be discharged at the 
end of seven years' service ; and had the king vetoed 
such enactments — he might then have been justly 
charged with forcing slavery on the colonies. But 
no colony ever passed any such law, or thought of 
doinff so. The vetoes on which Jefferson relied were 
of a very different sort. The colonies, especially 
those of the south, wished to raise a part of their 
revenue by duties on imports, with the double object 
of lightening the burden of direct taxation, and giv- 
ing protection to domestic manufactures. Among 
the chief imports into the southern colonies were 
negroes. But in seeking to impose a tax of a few 
pounds on each negro imported, the colonial legisla- 
tures, as a general thing, no more intended to abolish 
or even to restrict slavery or the slave-trade, than 
Congress, when it agreed to the square yard mini- 
mum duty upon cotton goods, intended to abolish or 
restrict the use of muslins and calicoes. The Eng- 
lish merchants, in whose hands the commerce of 
the colonies was, were then, as now, advocates of 
free trade; they complained of these duties, the 
one on negroes among the rest, as an interference 
with their commercial rights ; and they had interest 
enough with the British government to procure a 
standing instruction to all the royal governors not 
to consent to such sort of taxes. Finally, however, 
the matter was compromised by allowing the colonial 
legislatures to impose such duty as they pleased on 
negroes imported, provided it were made payable, 
not by the seller, the English trader, but by the buyer, 
the colonist planter. 
19 



218 DESPOTISM 

It seems, then, to be very plainly made out, that at 
the commencement of our Revolution, slavery had 
no legal basis in any of the North American colonies^ 
It existed^ as many other wrongs existed, in all of 
them. In many of the colonies, the assemblies, under 
a mistaken view of the law of England or of their own 
powers, or through wilful disregard of acknowledged 
restraints, had attempted to give to it the sanction of 
law. But by that same law of England, which the 
colonists claimed as their birthright, and to which 
they so loudly appealed against the usurpations of 
the mother country, all such statutes were void. The 
negroes were too ignorant to know their rights, and 
too helpless to vindicate them. They could not ap- 
peal to England, like the South Carolina dissenters, 
nor had they a powerful party there to support their 
rights ; but, legally speaking, they were all free ; and 
this, as to all of them at least who had been born in 
the colonies, was fully admitted, as has been already 
noticed, eight years previous to the decision in Som- 
erset's case, by James Otis, in his famous tract on 
the " Rights of the Colonists." 

It remains, then, to inquire, whether that Revolu- 
tion, which we are accustomed to extol as an out- 
burst of liberty, a memorable vindication of the 
Rights of Man, did, in fact, give to slavery a legal 
character; whether men, entitled by British law to 
their freedom, because slaves under the State and Fed- 
eral Constitutions ; and this is the question which we 
propose to discuss in the following section. 

* For further details on this subject, and an account of the partic- 
Tilar incident upon which Jefferson's charges seem, to have been 
chiefly based, see Hildreth's History of the United States, vol. ii. 
chap, xxvii. 



IN AMERICA. 219 



SECTION III. 

Slavery in the States^ and under the Federal Cori' 

stitution. 

We examined in the previous section the preten- 
sions of slavery — as it existed in the British North 
American colonies prior to the Revolution which con- 
verted those colonies into the United States of 
America — to rest upon a legal basis. We found, in 
most of the colonies, statutes of the colonial assem- 
blies of an earlier or later date, and in all of them, a 
practice assuming to legalize the slavery of negroes, 
Indians, and the mixed race ; to make that slavery 
hereditary wherever the mother was a srlave ; and, as 
to all claims of freedom, to throw the burden of proof 
on the claimant. But we also found that this prac- 
tice, and all the statutes attempting to legalize it, 
were in direct conflict with great and perfectly well 
settled principles of the law of England, which was 
also the supreme law of the colonies ; principles 
which the colonial legislatures and the colonial courts 
had no authority to set aside or to contradict; 
and thence we concluded that American slavery, 
prior to the Revolution, had no legal basis, but exist- 
ed as it had done in England for some two centuries 
or more prior to Somerset's case — a mere usurpation 
on the part of the masters, and a mere wrong as re- 
spected those alleged to be slaves. 

Nor is this view of the matter by any means ori- 
ginal, or at all of recent origin. It was taken and 
acted on and made the basis of emancipation in 
Massachusetts, while the British rule still prevailed 
in America. The best account, indeed, almost the 
only original account of the abolition of slavery in 
Massachusetts, is contained in a paper by Dr. Bel- 
knap, printed in the Massachusetts Historical Collec- 
tions. Dr. Belknap states, that about the time of the 
commencement of the revolutionary disputes, sev- 



220 DESPOTISiVI 

eral opponents of slavery " took occasion publicly to 
remonstrate against the inconsistency of contending 
for our own liberty, and at the same time depriving 
other people of theirs." Nathaniel Appleton and 
James Swan, merchants of Boston, distinguished 
themselves as writers on the side of liberty. " Those 
on the other side generally concealed their names, 
but their arguments were not suffered to rest long 
without an answer. The controversy began about 
the year 1766, and was renewed at various times till 
1773, when it was very warmly agitated, and became 
the subject of forensic disputation at the public Com- 
mencement in Harvard College." 

So far, at least, as concerned the further impor- 
tation of negroes and others " as slaves," the subject 
was introduced also into the General Court ; but nei- 
ther Bernard, Hutchinson, nor Gage would concur in 
any legislation upon it. " The blacks," says Belknap, 
" had better success in the judicial courts. A pam- 
phlet containing the case of a negro who had accom- 
panied his master from the West Indies to England, 
and had there sued for and obtained his freedom, was 
reprinted" at Boston, in 1771, "and this encouraged 
several negroes to sue their masters for their freedom, 
and for recompense of their services after they had 
attained the age of twenty-one years." " The ne- 
groes collected money among themselves to carry on 
the suit, and it terminated favorably. Other suits 
were instituted between that time and the Revolu- 
tion, and the juries invariably gave their verdict in 
favor of liberty." The old fundamental law of Mas- 
sachusetts authorizing the slavery of Indians and 
negroes was no longer in force ; it had fallen 
with the first charter. Under the second charter no 
such statute had been reenacted, but slavery had con- 
tinued by custom, and had apparently been recog- 
nized by the statutes of the province, as a legal rela- 
tion. " The pleas on the part of the masters were, 
that the negroes were purchased in open market, and 
bills of sale were produced in evidence; that the 



IN AMERICA. -^21 

laws of the province recognized slavery as existinir in 
it, by declaring that no person shonld manumit his 
slave without giving bond for his maintenance, &c. 
On the part of the blacks it was pleaded, that the 
royal charter expressly declared all persons born or 
residing in the province to be as free as the king's 
subjects in Great Britain; that by the law of Eng- 
land, no man could be deprived of his liberty but by 
the judgment of his peers ; that the laws of the prov- 
ince respecting an evil existing, and attempting to 
mitigate or regulate it, did not authorize it ; and on 
some occasions the plea was, that though the slavery 
of the parents be admitted, yet that no disability of 
that kind could descend to the children." " The 
juries invariably gave their verdict in favor of lib- 
erty ; " nor does it appear that these verdicts were in 
any respect inconsistent witb the instructions of the 
judges as to matter of law. 

The blow thus dealt at slavery in Massachusetts 
mi^ht perhaps have been repeated in other colonies ; 
but before there was time for any thing of the sort, 
the Revolution occurred, and new governments 
stepped in to take the places of the old ones. This 
brings us back to the question started at the close of 
the preceding section : Did the new governments, 
established at the Revolution, do any thing, or could 
they do any thing, to give an additional character of 
legality to the institution of slavery ? 

Let us begin with the commonwealth of Virginia. 
The convention of delegates and representatives from 
the several counties and corporations which assumed 
the responsibility of framing a new government for 
that state, very properly prefaced their labors by set- 
ting forth a Declaration of Rights, as its " basis and 
foundation." This Declaration of Rights, bearing 
date June 12, 1776, announced, among other things, 
"that all men are by nature equally free and inde- 
pendent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, 
when they enter into a state of societv, they cannot by 
19* 



222 DESPOTISM 

any compact deprive or divest their posterity; name- 
ly, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means 
of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing 
and obtaining happiness and safety." Upon "the 
basis and foundation " of this Declaration of Rights, 
the convention proceeded to erect a "constitution, or 
form of government," in which it was provided that 
the "common law of England," and all statutes of 
parliament not local in their character, made in aid 
of the common law prior to the settlement of Vir- 
ginia, "together with the several acts of the Gen- 
eral Assembly of this colony 7ioiv in force, so far as 
the same may consist with the several ordinances, 
declarations, and resolutions of the general conven- 
tion, shall be considered as in full force until the 
same shall be altered by the legislative power of this 
colony." But this provision could give no validity 
to the colonial acts for the establishment of slavery ; 
in the first place, because those acts, legally speaking, 
were not in force, and never had been, being void 
from the beginning, enacted in defiance of great 
principles of the English law, by which the powers 
of the colonial assembly were restricted ; and in the 
second place, because they did not and could not 
consist with the above quoted " declaration," laid 
down by the convention itself as "the basis and 
foundation" of the new government. 

Immediately after the adoption of this constitution, 
provision was made for revising the laws of Virginia, 
and a committee was appointed for that purpose; 
but nothing was done till 1785, when several bills 
prepared by the committee of revision were sanctioned 
by the assembly and enacted as laws. In one of 
these acts it was provided, "that no persons shall 
henceforth be slaves in this commonwealth, except 
such as were so on the first day of this present ses- 
sion of assembly, and the descendants of the females 
of them." This act, embodied into the codification 
of 1792, still remains in force ; and through it all 
legal titles to slave property in Virginia must be 



IN AMERICA. 



223 



traced. But in 1785, there were no persons legally 
held as slaves in Virginia. The practice on this sub- 
ject, and the acts of the colonial assembly which 
countenanced that practice, were contradictory to the 
law of England, always binding on the colonial 
assembly, and specially adopted by the revolutionary 
government as the law of Virginia; and contra- 
dictory, also, to those general principles and that 
declaration of natural rights specially adopted as 
'^the basis and foundation " of the new government. 
The convention which framed the constitution of 
Virginia was far from conferring, or from claiming 
any power to confer, on the assembly any authority 
to reduce any of the inhabitants of that state to a 
condition of slavery. The assembly was far from 
claiming the possession of any such power, or from 
attempting to add any thing to the legal basis upon 
which slavery rested prior to the Revolution. It re- 
mained then what it had been in colonial times, a 
mere usurpation, without any legal basis; a usurpa- 
tion in direct defiance of the Declaration of Rights, 
upheld by mere force and terror, and the overwhelm- 
ing power and influence of the masters, without law 
and against law. 

The convention of Maryland, (which upon the 
breaking out of hostilities with the mother country 
had displaced the proprietary government,) following 
in the footsteps of Virginia, adopted, on the 3d of 
November, 1776, a Declaration of Rights, the intro- 
ductory part of a new constitution, in which they 
declared, " that all government of right originates from 
the people ; is founded in compact only, and is con- 
stituted solely for the good of the whole ; " and " that 
the inhabitants of Maryland are entitled to the com- 
mon law of England; to all English statutes appli- 
cable to their situation, passed before the settlement 
of Maryland, and introduced and practised on in the 
colony ; and also to all acts of the old colonial assem- 
bly "in force" on the 1st of June, 1774. But the 



224 DESPOTISM 

acts of assembly sanctioning and legalizing slavery 
were not "in force" on the 1st of June, 1774, nor at 
any other time. They never had been in force ; they 
were contrary to the law of England, to a corre- 
spondency with which the colonial assembly was 
specially limited by charter. Yet it is on these void 
acts that the supposed legality of slavery in Mary- 
land still continues to rest. 

The constitution of North Carolina, formed Decem- 
ber 17, 1776, contains not one single word respecting 
slavery. That institution did not receive even the 
semblance of support derived in Virginia and 
Maryland from the continuation in force of the colo- 
nial acts; for no act of the colonial assembly of 
North Carolina had ever attempted to define who 
were or might be slaves. Nor was any such attempt 
made by the newly-established assembly. Slavery 
remained in the state of North Carolina what it had 
been in the colony, — a mere custom, a sheer usurpa- 
tion, not sustained by even the semblance of law. 

Neither the first constitution of South Carolina, 
adopted in March, 1776, nor the second constitution, 
adopted March, 1778, contains a single word attempt- 
ing to legalize slavery, nor even any clause contin- 
uing in force the old colonial acts. But in February, 
1777, in the interval between the two constitutions, 
an act of assembly revived and continued in force 
for five years certain of those acts, among others the 
act of 1740, on the subject of slavery, of which a 
synopsis was given in the preceding section ; and in 
1783, this act was made perpetual. But the act of 
1740 was void from the beginning, by reason of nu- 
merous contradictions to the law of England which 
the colonial assembly of South Carolina had no 
power to enact into law. If, then, the reviving acts 
of 1777 and 1783 are to have any validity, they must 
be considered as original acts, subjecting half the 
population of South Carolina to perpetual slavery. 



IN AMERICA. 



225 



Had the assembly of South Carolina any authority 
to pass such acts? Has it any such authority at this 
moment? Could the South Carolina democrats, 
having a majority in the assembly, pass a valid act 
for selling all the whigs into perpetual slavery? or 
all inhabitants of Irish descent? or all white men not 
freeholders and not possessed of visible property? or 
all citizens of Massachusetts who might land on her 
hospitable coast? 

We must always remember, in considering ques- 
tions of this sort, that not the federal government 
only, but the state governments, also, are govern- 
ments of limited powers. The sovereign power is in 
the people, or that portion of it possessed of political 
rights ; the holders of offices created by the state con- 
stitutions possess no authority not specially conferred 
on them by those constitutions. Admit, for the sake 
of the argument, that the sovereign people of South 
Carolina are omnipotent, and can give the character 
of law to the most atrocious wrongs ; yet, surely, no 
state legislature can exercise any such authority, un- 
less it be expressly delegated. But the constitutions 
of South Carolina delegated no such power; and 
a power in a state legislature to reduce, at its pleas- 
ure, to the condition of perpetual servitude, any 
portion of the inhabitants of a state, and that not for 
public but for private uses, is hardly to be presumed 
as one of the ordinary powers of legislation, at least 
in a state which, in the solemn act of separation 
from the mother country, had united in declaring 
that all men are born free and equal, and that life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are inalienable 
rights. 

The first constitution of Georgia, formed in Feb- 
ruary, 1777, contains no allusion to slavery. The 
legislative power of the assembly is restricted to 
" such laws and regulations as may be conducive to 
the good order and well being of the state." Unsup- 
ported by any new authority, the system of slavery 



22G DESPOTISM 

was left ill Georgia, as in the other states, to rest on 
such legal basis as it might have had during colonial 
times. The rottenness of that basis was not per- 
ceived by the state legislatures nor by the state courts. 
Their preconceived prejudices, their unwillingness to 
look into the matter at all, kept them blind to it; 
but their blindness, their ignorance, their mistakes, 
could not alter the law, nor make that legal which in 
fact was not so. 

There was, indeed, the best of reasons why none 
of the States — however several of them might be will- 
ing to leave to slavery such character of legality as 
it had acquired from colonial legislation — should have 
ventured upon any direct attempts, by virtue of their 
newly-assumed powers, to bestow upon it a new and 
original character of legality. For, however jurists 
and courts of law may have admitted a legal omnipo- 
tence in governments, the people of the United States, 
in rising against the mother country, and establishing 
themselves as a separate nation, had expressly re- 
nounced any such claims. Not to mention particu- 
lar State Bills of Rights, their joint Declaration of 
Independence — that public and official exhibition of 
reasons for the steps they had taken in breaking up 
their union with Great Britain — proceeded on the 
very ground that men possess certain inherent and 
unalienable Rights, including life, liberty, and the pur- 
suit of happiness — rights which no government has 
authority to take away, unless, indeed, in the way of 
punishment for crimes — and any deliberate and con- 
tinuous attempt to invade which, justifies resistance 
even unto death. With what face could governments 
which had just made such a declaration of principles 
proceed to enact laws subjecting to perpetual and he- 
reditary servitude one half or more of their inhab- 
itants ? How paltry, how trifling, side by side with 
such a terrible assumption, must have appeared the 
parliamentary claim to tax the colonies, out of which 
the Revolution grew I 



IN AMERICA. 227 

Nor was the renunciation thus made without a more 
direct and positive influence in many of the states ; 
for the Supreme Court of Massachusetts decided, in 
1784, that the natural freedom and political equality 
of all men, proclaimed in the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, and in the Bill of Rights prefixed to the 
Constitution adopted in that state in 1780, were to- 
tally inconsistent with the existence of involuntary 
servitude, and that slavery under that Bill of Rights 
could not be legal. A similar clause in the second 
constitution of New Hampshire was held to guarantee 
personal freedom to all persons born in that state after 
the adoption of that constitution. In Pennsylvania, 
Connecticut, and Rhode Island, personal liberty was 
secured by statute to all future natives of those 
states; and, to complete this scheme of abolition in 
these three states, as well as in New Hampshire, the 
further introduction of persons claimed as slaves, or 
the exportation of such persons from those states, was 
prohibited. 

In five of the eight remaining states, New York, New- 
Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, slavery 
was regarded, by the more intelligent and enlightened 
citizens, including all those distinguished men who 
had taken a conspicuous part in the late Revolution, 
as an evil and a wrong inconsistent with the princi- 
ples on which that Revolution was founded. Its ter- 
mination was anxiously looked for, and confidently 
hoped. All those five states had taken the first step 
in that direction by prohibiting the farther introduc- 
tion of persons claimed as slaves ; while Virginia and 
Maryland, by repealing the old colonial acts which 
forbade manumissions, except by the allowance of 
the governor and council, had opened a door for the 
action of individual sentiment in favor of liberty 
which came soon into active exercise. 

Such was the state of things in the ten northern 
states when the Federal convention came together ; 
and, pending the session of that convention, the fa- 
mous ordinance of 1787 was passed by the Congress 



228 DESPOTISM 

of the confederation, by which involuntary servitude, 
except for crime, was forever prohibited in the terri- 
tory north-west of the Ohio, the only territory to 
which, as yet, the confederacy had any title. 

Yet this rising sentiment in favor of impartial lib- 
erty encountered a formidable opposition. The abo- 
lition of slavery had been carried, indeed, in five of 
the states, but in only one of those five had it been 
thorough, sweeping, and complete. Four had pro- 
vided for the future, but had not thought it expedient 
to interfere with the present. In five other states, a 
commencement only had been made. The mass of 
the slave-holders in those five states clung with te- 
nacity to their prey ; and the friends of emancipation, 
though their influence was apparent, did not yet ven- 
ture to propose any ver}^ decisive measures. In the 
Carolinas and Georgia the case was much worse. , 
The Quakers of North Carolina had indeed com- 
menced the emancipation of their slaves, but the as- 
sembly of that state put a stop to that " dangerous 
practice," as they pronounced it, by forbidding emanci- 
pations, except by allowance of the County Courts, and 
directing all slaves hitherto emancipated without that 
allowance to be seized and resold into slavery. Since 
the peace, the importation of slaves from the coast of 
Africa into the three southern states had been recom- 
menced, and was vigorously carried on. In those 
states there was little thought of foregoing a system 
from which great gains were hoped ; though the legis- 
lature of North Carolina, in a recent act imposing a 
duty on future importations, expressly admitted the 
further introduction of slaves to be of " evil conse- 
quence, and highly impolitic." 

Let it be remenibered, however, — and this consid- 
eration, though frequently overlooked or disregarded, 
is absolutely essential to a correct underst'^nding of 
the case, — that the Federal convention did not assem- 
ble to revise the laws or institutions of the states ; nor 
to determine or enforce the political or social rights 



IN AMERICA. 229 

appertaining to the inhabitants of the states, as such. 
That had been done ah-eady by the state constitu- 
tions. • The states existed as bodies politic; they had 
their laws defining the rights of their citizens and in- 
habitants, and their courts for enforcing those rights ; 
and with none of those arrangements, either by way 
of enforcement or alteration, was it any part of the 
business of the Federal convention to interfere, un- 
less in cases where these arrangements had or might 
have an injurious bearing upon the citizens of other 
states, or upon the foreign relations of the confederacy. 
The business of the Federal convention was, so to 
amend the articles of confederation as to carry into 
effect the objects at which that confederation aimed ; 
namely, the enabling the states to act as one nation 
in their foreign affairs, and securing the several states 
and their individual inhabitants against injustice, op- 
pression, or injury, on the part of other states or their 
individual inhabitants. 

It might indeed become necessary, for the accom- 
plishment of these objects, to interfere to some extent 
with some of the existing laws and institutions of the 
states, or at least to reserve to the authorities, to be 
created by the new constitution, the power of doing 
so ; and under the plan adopted of submitting that 
constitution to be separately ratified by each of the 
states, any alterations so made or authorized would 
rest on the same basis of popular consent with the 
state constitutions themselves. But this interference 
with state constitutions or state laws, any interference 
in any shape with the internal affairs of the states, was 
a power to be very daintily exercised, especially in its 
application to particular cases, as, otherwise, any con- 
stitution which the convention might form would be 
sure of being rejected. 

Thus the Federal convention had chiefly to do 
with the people of America, not in their character as 
individuals about to enter into a primary political 
organization, but in their character as inhabitants of 
certain states already constituted and organized. Their 
20 



230 DESPOTISM 

rights as inhabitants of each particular state it be- 
longed to the state governments to settle : the Fed- 
eral constitution had only to declare what should be 
their additional and supplementary rights as citizens 
and inhabitants of the confederacy. 

It was from this view of the work before them that 
the conv.ention omitted to prefix to the Federal Con- 
stitution any general Bill of Rights — an omission 
much complained of by those who opposed its adop- 
tion. Slavery in the states, under this view of the 
subject, was a matter with which the convention was 
not called upon directly to interfere, and which, in- 
deed, could not be directly interfered with without 
exposing the proposed constitution to certain rejec- 
tion. It did, however, come before the convention 
incidentally; and the question which we now have 
to consider is. Whether, in dealing with it thus inci- 
dentally, the Federal constitution has acknowledged 
the legal existence of slavery in any such way as to 
bind the confederacy. 

The first article in the Federal constitution relied 
upon by those who maintain the affirmative on this 
point is that which determines the ratio of repre- 
sentation in the House of Representatives. That 
article, indeed, is frequently spoken of as though it 
were the great compromise ; the fundamental conces- 
sion upon which the constitution was based. But 
this was not by any means the case.. The great dif- 
ficulty that occurred at the outset was, to reconcile 
the pretensions of the larger and the smaller states. 
The smaller states insisted upon that political equality 
which they already possessed under the articles of 
confederation ; the larger states maintained that repre- 
sentation in the national legislature ought to be based 
on "wealth and numbers." A resolution to that ef- 
fect, as to both branches of the legislature, having been 
carried by the larger states, the smaller states threat- 
ened to quit the convention ; and this result was only 
prevented by a concession — ^recommended by a com- 
mittee of one from each state, to whom the subject 



IN AMERICA. 



231 



was referred, and which was finally adopted by the 
convention — yielding to the small states an equal rep- 
resentation in one branch of the national legislature, 
namely, in the Senate, in which each state, large or 
small, was to have two delegates. 

This was the great compromise : the particular 
ratio of representation to be adopted in the other 
branch was quite a subordinate matter. Yet, though 
subordinate, it was interesting and important. One 
party, headed by Gouverneur Morris, wished to leave 
the ratio of representation in the lower house entirely 
to the discretion of Congress, with the avowed object 
of enabling the existing states to retain a political 
ascendency over such new states as might be admit- 
ted into the Union. But this was objected to as 
unjust, and it became necessary to fix upon some 
precise rule of distribution. There was a general 
agreement that this distribution should be regulated 
by " wealth and numbers ; " numbers might easily be 
ascertained by a census ; but how was wealth to be 
measured ? 

This was a point upon which, under the existing 
confederation, difficulties had already occurred. In 
framing the articles of confederation it had been pro- 
posed — on the ground that population, on the whole, 
was the best practicable test of wealth, and ability 
to pay taxes — to distribute the charges of the war, 
and other common expenses, among the states in 
proportion to their population. But the southern 
states had strongly objected to that arrangement, 
alleging that the labor of their slaves was far less pro- 
ductive than the labor of the same number of north- 
ern freemen ; and the value of buildings and culti- 
vated lands, to be ascertained by an appraisement 
made by the authorities of each state, was finally 
adopted as the basis of taxation and pecuniary lia- 
bility. But such an appraisement was found liable to 
great difficulties, expenses, delays, and objections; 
very few states had made it; and Congress, since the 
peace, bv a concession to the slave-holders, and an 



232 DESPOTISM 

admission of the wealth-producing inefficiency of 
slaves as compared with freemen, had proposed to 
amend the articles of confederation by substituting 
as the basis of taxation, and of the distribution among 
the states of the expenses of the Revolutionary war, 
"the whole number of white and other free citizens 
and inhabitants of every age, sex, and condition, in- 
' eluding those bound to servitude for a term of years, 
and three fifths of all other persons not comprehended 
in the foregoing description ; " and this proposed 
amendment, agreed to in Congress after a good 
deal of higgling between the northern and southern 
members as to the relative productiveness of free and 
slave labor, had been already acceded to by eleven 
out of the thirteen states. The question of the meas- 
ure of wealth as the basis of representation being now 
raised in the convention, the same compromise was 
suggested there ; and, having first agreed that repre- 
sentation and direct taxation should go together, it 
was finally arranged, and so it now stands in the Fed- 
eral constitution, that the number of representatives 
from each state shall be determined " by adding to the 
whole number of free persons, including those bound 
to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians 
not taxed, three fifths of all other persons.^^ 

The question then is, whether the phrase three fifths 
of all other persons recognizes the validity of the slave 
laws of any particular state, and affords a sufficient 
basis for those laws to stand upon, notwithstanding 
their original defects already pointed out. Let us ob- 
serve, in the first place, that the validity of those laws 
was not of the least consequence in settling the point 
under consideration, to wit, the productiveness of the 
industry — in other words, the relative wealth — of the 
several states. Whether the negroes of Virginia, for 
instance, were held in slavery by law or against law, 
made, in that point of view, no difference. Suppose, 
for example, (as we hold,) that they were illegally de- 
prived of their liberty; the illegality of their servitude 
would not increase their industry, nor the wealth of 



IN AMERICA. 



233 



the state, so as to entitle her whole population to be 
counted in determining her representation. What 
the constitution had to deal with, in settling this 
distribution of representation, was a question of ex- 
ternal fact, not a question of law or right. The 
question of the individual rights of the inhabitants 
of the states was one over which this article re- 
quired the assumption of no control. Their con- 
dition in fact, not their condition in law, was the 
real point according to which the distribution w^as to 
be regulated. 

But even in referring to the matter of fact great 
caution was used. " The question of slavery in the 
states," said Gerry, in reference to another point to 
be presently considered, " ought not to be touched, 
but we ought to be careful not to give it any sanc- 
tion." Madison thought it wrong to admit into the 
constitution " the idea that there could be property 
in men;" and in his report of the doings of that con- 
vention, to which we are mainly indebted for what 
we know of it, he represents the whole phraseology 
of the instrument to have been carefully settled in 
accordance with that view. Thus, in the original 
draft of the clause above cited, instead of bound to 
service^ the phrase bound to servitude had been used, 
following in this respect the proposed amendment to 
the articles of confederation from which the idea of 
the Federal ratio was derived ; but servitude was 
struck out, and service substituted, • as Madison in- 
forms us, because servitude seemed to be only appro- 
priate to express the condition of slavery. 

It is fair enough to conclude that the '• other per- 
sons,'' referred to in this article, were those held as 
slaves in the several states. But the constitution 
takes care not to commit itself by calling them slaves, 
nor by using any term that would seem to pass a 
judgment on the legal character or particular legal 
incidents of their condition. That remained what it 
was ; this article did not affect it in any way ; and if 
the laws of the states fail, as we maintain, to give any 
20* 



234 



DESPOTISM 



legal authority to those who claim to be masters, they 
will surely look for it in vain in this article of the Fed- 
eral constitution. 

When the Federal convention, in tne course of its 
labors, arrived at the clauses investing: Cons^ress with 
the power to regulate navigation and foreign com- 
merce, a new occasion for compromise arose. Ten 
states out of the thirteen had already prohibited the 
importation of slaves from abroad, and if the Federal 
government were invested with unlimited control over 
the intercourse with foreign countries, it was plain 
enough that one of its first acts would be the pro- 
hibition of the African slave trade. 

For this Georgia and the Carolinas were not pre- 
pared ; and the opinion was very warmly and confi- 
dently expressed by their delegates, that such an un- 
limited power conferred upon Cotigress would insure 
in those states the rejection of the constitution. To 
avoid this result, and to induce, also, the southernmost 
states to concede this power over commerce, to which 
in common with all the merely agricultural states, they 
had several other objections, a provision was inserted, 
"that the emigration or importation of such persons 
as any of the states now existing shall think proper 
to admit, shall not be prohibited by Congress prior to 
the year 1808 ; but a tax or duty may be imposed on 
such importation not exceeding ten dollars for each 
person." 

Observe in this clause the same cautious phrase- 
ology as in that already discussed. As to the legal 
character or condition of the persons so to be admit- 
ted, nothing is said. There is not the slightest impli- 
cation that the constitution assented in any way that 
any of the persons so introduced into the states should 
be held in slavery. If that was done, it could only 
be on the responsibility of those who did it, and of the 
states that allowed it. The constitution did not as- 
sent to it, and by the power which it reserved to Con- 
gress, — all the power which was possible under the 



IN AMERICA. 235 

circumstances, — it secured the right, after Ihe lapse 
of twenty years, of preventing the possibility of such 
an occurrence. But for this right, thus reserved to 
the Federal government, there is every reason to be- 
lieve that in all the states south of Virginia the 
foreign slave trade would be now vigorously prose- 
cuted. The concession made to Georgia and the 
Carolinas was temporary and limited ; the point car- 
ried was of a permanent character. 

There still remains one other clause of the constitu- 
tion relied upon as sanctioning slavery in the states. 
" No person held to service or labor in one state, 
under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, 
in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be 
discharged from such service or labor; but shall be 
delivered up on claim of the party to whom such ser- 
vice or labor may be due." It may be worth while 
to notice that in the article now under consideration, 
the term service is employed — " no person held to 
service or labor ; " whereas, according to the distinc- 
tion above quoted from Madison, the term se?'vi' 
tude would have been the proper one, had the 
clause been expressly intended for the case of ref- 
ugee slaves. But, without dwelling on this distinc- 
tion, it is sufficient for our purpose to refer to the 
pointed difference between this and the apportion- 
ment clause, in the express reference which this 
clause makes to law. Practice, usage, fact merely, 
is not sufficient, but law is required. " No person 
held to service or labor in one state, under the laws 
thereof^^^ &c. The question, then, whether this clause 
stipulates for the return of fugitive slaves, is entirely 
dependent on the previous question whether there is 
any lawful slavery in any of the states — a question 
upon which this clause expresses no opinion, and 
throws not the slightest light whatsoever. If there be 
any such slavery, it must exist by virtue of state 
laws, laws complete and authoritative in themselves ; 
for whatever might have been the intention, or what- 



236 DESPOTISM 

ever may be the legal effect of this clause, it surely 
neither intended to give, nor can it have any effect to 
give, a legal or rightful character to any claims of ser- 
vice not previously rightful and legal. 

From numerous recent speeches, published opin- 
ions, and other apologies for the fugitive slave act of 
1850, one might be led to imagine that the surrender 
of fugitive slaves had been one of the great questions 
on which the Federal convention had divided, and 
which, as an indispensable condition of union, it had 
become necessary to settle by a solemn compromise 
embodied in the article here under consideration. To 
show how utterly fabulous these statements, so derog- 
atory to the convention and to the nation, are, we 
subjoin, from Madison's Report of the Debates of the 
Convention, all that is known of the history of this 
clause ; merely premising, what seems to be some- 
times forgotten, that the Union did not originate 
with the convention, but had been established by the 
Articles of Confederation ratified by all the states some 
years before — articles which the convention had met 
to amplify and amend so as to give greater efficiency 
to the central administration. 

After warm and protracted debates, and the com- 
promise, as already briefly mentioned, of two very 
exciting questions — one, that of the relative political 
weight in the general government to be allowed to 
the great and small states, which, by the articles of 
confederation, possessed an equal voice ; the other as 
to ratio of representation in the lower House, — for the 
third of the three great compromises, that relating to 
the importation for twenty years of such persons as any 
of the states might see fit to allow, did not take place 
till a subsequent stage of proceedings, — the conven- 
tion came at length to certain resolutions embodying 
the result of its previous discussions and compro- 
mises, and supplying the rough material of the consti- 
tution as subsequently adopted. These resolutions, 
which did not embrace any more than the articles 



IN AMERICA. 237 

of confederation, any thing on the subject of fugi- 
tives, whether from justice or labor, were referred 
to a committee of detail, whose report, among other 
specific provisions, now first suggested, contained an 
article giving to the citizens of each state all the 
privileges of citizens in the several states, and an- 
other, providing for the mutual surrender by the states 
of fugitives from other states charged with treason, 
felony, or high misdemeanor. The first of these 
articles coming up for debate, General Charles C. 
Pinckney, of hjouth Carolina, expressed himself not 
satisfied with it. " He seemed to wish that some 
provision should be inserted in it in favor of property 
in slaves." Very likely he had in his head a provision 
as to the states similar to the pretension lately set 
up by the slave-holders as to the territories, giving 
the right to hold slaves into whatever state the 
holder might choose to carry them. But if so, 
he did not venture upon any such barefaced prop- 
osition ; and the article, as it now stands in the con- 
stitution, was adopted by the votes of all the states 
present except South Carolina in the negative, and 
Georgia divided. The proposed article on the sub- 
ject of fugitives from justice coming up immediately 
after, Butler, another South Carolina member, moved 
" to require fugitive slaves and servants to be deliv- 
ered up like criminals." To this, Wilson, of Penn- 
sylvania, objected " that it would require the executive 
of the state to do it at the public expense." Sherman, 
of Connecticut, added that " he saw no more propri- 
ety in the public seizing and surrendering a slave or 
servant than a horse." With a view to some sep- 
arate provision, Butler withdrew his proposition ; 
but the next day offered the draft of a clause, 
the idea of which was evidently derived from a sim- 
ilar provision in an ordinance just passed by the 
Continental Congress, which, in prohibiting forever 
slavery and involuntary servitude, except in punish- 
ment of crimes, in the territory north-west of the 
Ohio, (lately ceded to the Union by the states of Vir- 



238 DESPOTISM 

ginia, New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut,) 
had also provided " that every person escaping into 
the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully- 
claimed in any one of the original states, such fugi- 
tive may be lawfully returned, and conveyed^ to 
the person claiming his or her labor as aforesaid." 
Guided evidently by this precedent, Butler proposed, 
and the convention — in compliance, as we may rea- 
sonably conjecture, with an understanding come to 
out of doors — adopted without debate or dissent an 
independent proposition in the following terms : " If 
any person bound to service or labor in any of the 
United States shall escape into another state, he or 
she shall not be discharged from such service or 
labor in consequence of any regulations subsisting in 
the state to which they escape, but shall be delivered 
up to the person justly claiming their service or 
labor." The committee on style, appointed to revise 
and arrange all the articles agreed on, proposed to 
amend this one as follows : " No person legally 
held to service or labor in one state, escaping into 
another, shall, in consequence of regulations subsist- 
ing therein, be discharged from such service or labor ; 
but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to 
whom such service or labor may be due ; " but, be- 
fore its final adoption, the phraseology was still fur- 
ther altered, and it was brought into the shape in 
which it now stands — in compliance, as Madison tells 
us, with the wish of some who thought the word 
legally equivocal, and favoring the idea that slavery 
was legal in a moral point of view. 

Wholly apart from any application of this clause 
to the case of runaway slaves, there was ample mat- 
ter for it to operate upon, not only in apprentices and 
minor children to whose labor the father has a legal 
right, but in those indented servants who had consti- 
tuted, daring the whole of the colonial times, so con- 
siderable a part of the population, especially in the 
Middle States, and whom, as their importation, in- 
terrupted by the war, was again beginning to be 



IN AMERICA. 239 

resumed, the convention might reasonably have ex- 
pected soon to become as numerous as ever. As 
applying to apprentices, children, and indented ser- 
vants, the article in question confers a right in which 
the citizens of all tlie states may share ; viewed 
as a provision for the surrender of runaway slaves, 
it assumes an unequal and exclusive character, con- 
ferring a very invidious power on the citizens of a 
part only of the states — a character not to be found 
in any other article of the Federal constitution, and 
wholly incompatible with its whole spirit. 

The simple state of the fact seems then to be this. 
A clause was inserted into the constitution perfectly 
appropriate though there had not been a slave in 
the Union, and which may very properly stand there 
after slavery shall be completely abolished, as it was 
the general expectation in the convention that it soon 
would be. Bnt in framing this clause, terms were 
used sufficiently comprehensive to enable the courts, 
if so disposed, constructively to include under it, 
during the temporary existence of slavery, the case 
of runaway slaves — provided, the courts should be of 
opinion that in the states whence the fugitives had 
fled, slavery existed not merely as a fact, but "under 
the laws thereof." In this clause, so much vaunted 
as a Federal recognition and indorsement of the legal- 
ity of slavery, not the slightest reference even to the 
mere fact of its existence can be found, except by first 
taking for granted the very point which it is so often 
cited to prove, viz., that slavery did and does exist in 
the states by virtue of law. (See Appendix.) 

The three clauses of the Federal constitution above 
considered are the only portions of that instrument 
which have ever been set up as giving any sanction 
to slavery. But, so far from finding in these clauses 
any such sanction, we find, on the contrary, evidence 
of a fixed determination in the constitution not to 
yield it. They contain no indorsement of the slave 
laws of the states ; no recognition of slavery as a 



240 DESPOTISM 

state institution ; no express recognition even of the 
bare fact of the existence of slavery, and much less 
of its existence as an institution entitled to the favor- 
able regard and protecting care of the Federal gov- 
ernment. General Pinckney, of South Carolina, in 
the course of the debates of the convention, more 
than once asked for such guaranty for slave property ; 
but, so far from yielding to this demand, the greatest 
care was taken not to admit into the constitution " the 
idea that there could be property in men ;" that is to 
say, the very fundamental idea upon which the whole 
slave system rests. It was impossible for the Federal 
constitution, by its own proper vigor, to abolish sla- 
very, or to make its abolition one of the conditions 
of the Federal compact — for on such conditions no 
constitution could be formed. It was even necessary 
to take into account, in several of its provisions, the 
actual, but, as it was hoped and expected, temporary, 
existence of slavery. Yet, on the other hand, the 
greatest care was had not to give any sanction to a 
practice so inconsistent with those natural rights upon 
w hich all the American constitutions professed to be 
founded, nor indeed even to recognize, except by re- 
mote and obscure implication, its bare existence as 
a fact. The utmost length to which the members of 
the convention would go, was a silent toleration of sla- 
very as it existed; leaving it to be disposed of — and, 
as the convention expected, to be speedily abolished — 
by the states themselves. They were not anti-slavery 
men in that sense which makes hostility to slavery 
paramount to all other considerations ; but, so far as 
an extreme dislike of that system, and a hearty wish 
for its speedy extinction, could go, the majority of 
them wove decidedly anti-slavery men ; and the consti- 
tution, and especially the amendments to it subse- 
quently adopted, contain many provisions very incon- 
sistent with the existence of slavery. 

This view of the Federal constitution corresponds 
very nearly with the view taken of it, both north and 
south, for many years subsequent to its adoption. It 



IN AMERICA. 241 

is only within a recent period that the idea has been 
set up, that the "compromises of the constitution" 
include the recognition of slavery as an institution 
of the states, or some of them, entitled to protection 
and support. Still more recent is the doctrine that 
the distinguishing trait of "nationality" among us 
is the recognition and support of the system of sla- 
very, and zeal for the return of fugitive slaves. Not 
only does the Federal constitution, so far from recog- 
nizing slavery in any such character, take the greatest 
pains to avoid doing so, but in point of fact, as we 
maintain, slavery is not even a state institution, le- 
gally speaking, but a mere usurpation, unsupported 
by law, and in that character certainly not entitled to 
support or countenance from the Federal government 
or any other. 

But if the Federal constitution, though cautiously 
avoiding to commit the Union to the support of sla- 
very, has yet left the determination of the rights of 
the inhabitants of the states to the state authorities, 
— even allowing that slavery exists by usurpation and 
not by law, — has the Federal government any war- 
rant to interfere, in any way, to set this matter right ? 
Is it not bound to wait patiently till the state author- 
ities shall themselves do it ? 

Besides the specific and particular powers conferred 
upon Congress by the Federal constitution, that body, 
by a clause of a very extensive and comprehensive 
character, is authorized " to provide for the common 
defence and general welfare of the United States ; " 
at least in all the cases in which that end can be ac- 
complished by the expenditure of money. N6w, sup- 
pose the opinion to be adopted, by the majority of 
the people, that the " common defence and general 
welfare of the United States ; " their defence against 
invasion from abroad, and insurrection at home ; their 
welfare, moral, social, and economical, demand the 
termination of the system of slavery ; — and, in this 
point of view, it seems to matter but little whether 
21 



242 DESPOTISM 

we consider that system an illegal usurpation or a 
legal institution of those states in which it exists ; — 
suppose the conclusion to be arrived at, that the con- 
tinued existence of slavery, v^'hether legal or not, will 
be fatal to the success of that great democratic ex- 
periment which the American people are now mak- 
ing; — looking at the matter in this point of view, has 
not the Federal government a right to interfere, and 
to adopt such measures as seem best calculated to 
stop the increase of this evil, and to bring it to an 
end ? If, under the clause above cited, Congress had 
power to buy Louisiana, to buy Florida, to annex 
Texas, to buy California, has it not power, under the 
same clause, to vote money towards the liberation of 
some millions of native-born inhabitants from most 
cruel servitude ? 

It is true that, heretofore, Congress has not legis- 
lated with this intention. It is also true, that, on a 
petition signed by Franklin and others, and presented 
to the first Congress, praying that body to take meas- 
ures for the abolition of slavery, the conclusion was 
arrived at, after a warm debate, that Congress had no 
jurisdiction over the subject of slavery wi>thin the 
states. But this decision, binding only on the Con- 
gress that made it, though very generally acquiesced 
in since, still remains open to revision ; and a change 
of circumstances, changing the light in which the 
question presents itself, cannot fail to have a seri- 
ous influence on the decision to be made upon it. 

When the first Congress met, slavery was a crime 
and disgrace in which the whole of Christendom was 
more or less involved ; and in the wars which the na- 
tions of Europe carried on with each other, their prac- 
tices in this matter were mutually respected. When 
France, England, Spain, and Holland invaded each 
other's colonies, they never thought of putting arms 
into the hands of the slaves. Early in our Revolu- 
tionary war, some suggestion was thrown out in the 
British House of Commons, that the slaves in the 
southern states might be liberated, armed, and em- 



IN AMERICA. 243 

ployed to keep those colonies in subjection ; but the 
opposition, headed by Burke and Fox, denounced the 
idea as barbarous, atrocious, and infamous, and the 
suggestion, never seriously entertained, remained, to 
a great extent, unacted upon. Mason, of Virginia, 
feelingly acknowledged in the Federal convention, 
that if the British had availed themselves, as they 
might have done, of the aid of the negroes, the war 
in the southern states might have had a very different 
termination. 

During the last war with England, a plan, it is said, 
was formed for occupying the peninsula between the 
Chesapeake and the Delaware with a British army, 
turning it into an asylum for the slaves of Virginia 
and Maryland, to whom liberty was to be proclaimed ; 
organizing and training a black army, under English 
officers, and marching with it to the conquest of the 
South. But Britain had slaves of her own ; it would 
not do to set an example of insurrection and of liberty 
won at the point of the bayonet ; and this brilliant 
scheme was consequently abandoned. Had it been 
energetically undertaken, something more might have 
happened than the burning of the Capitol. 

Since that period opinions have greatly changed. 
England has abolished slavery throughout her \yide- 
spread dominions. France has also abolished it in 
her colonies. All Christendom cries out against it. 
Should we become involved in war with France or 
England, especially with England, — and war with 
England is one of" the commonplaces of our politics, 
— no matter what the cause or origin of the war, a 
proclamation of freedom to the enslaved would sanc- 
tify it in the eyes of the world. It would become the 
cause of humanity against despotism — a despotism 
the more hateful from its attempt to cloak itself with 
the name of democracy, and from its audacious efforts 
to trample out the doctrine of the rights of man in 
the very states by which that doctrine was first pro- 
claimed as the basis of political organization. The 
enemy would strike us in our vital parts, and Chris- 



244 DESPOTISM 

tendom would honor and applaud the blow. Under 
these circumstances, will not due regard to the " com- 
mon defence" justify Congress in adopting a coarse 
of legislative policy such as may narrow, limit, re- 
strict, and tend to the extinction of a source of weak- 
ness which no provision of forts and steam frigates 
can guard against? 

The "welfare of the United States," their internal 
well-being, apart from any dangers from without, and 
more especially the welfare of the slave states them- 
selves, seem to call still louder for Congressional 
interference. The perception of the evils of slavery 
has, till recently, been confined to a speculative few 
— a class of persons more inclined to think than to 
act, and disabled, by the small ness of their number, 
from any effectual political action. But sensibility to 
those evils, especially to the obstacles which the exist- 
ence of slavery opposes to the further extension of the 
principles of equality and justice even in their appli- 
cation to the free, — thanks to the efforts and labors 
of those known as Abolitionists^ — is now beginning 
to penetrate the mass, and to find representatives and 
an expression in the legislatures of the free states, and 
even in Congress. When a majority in Congress 
come to be thoroughly impregnated with these ideas ; 
when they come to look upon slavery, not merely as 
an evil, a calamity, a thing to be lamented and regret- 
ted, but as a fatal obstacle to the progress of our free 
institutions, a consuming cancer eating into the heart 
of our liberties, and threatening the extinction of those 
principles upon which our constitutions are founded ; 
— perceiving that the " welfare of the United States " 
is seriously compromised, — can they hesitate to come 
to the rescue ? Will they not feel themselves called 
upon, not alone by humanity, by patriotism, but by 
the very letter of the constitution itself, to come to 
the rescue? 

But even grant that Congress might not rightfully 
assume to legislate upon the subject of slavery inde- 
pendently of and adverse to the states to be directly 



IN AMERICA. 245 

affected by such legislation, yet their consent and co- 
operation would certainly go far to remove this obsta- 
cle. Nor is it to be supposed that such a feeling as 
we have above referred to can become predominant 
in Congress without penetrating, also, to a greater or 
less extent, into the slave states themselves. But the 
evil of slavery is so immense, and in most of our 
slave states it has become so firmly rooted, — swal- 
lowing up, as it were, the state and the church, and 
enlisting in its support the wealth, the talent, the 
intelligence, the education, the ignorance, the preju- 
dices, and the passions of the people, — that to wait 
for those states to take the leadership in the abolition 
movement would be absurd. The effects of such 
waiting have been long since manifest. The abo- 
lition of slavery in Maryland and Virginia, so confi- 
dently expected and so devoutly wished for by Henry, 
Washington, Jefferson, Mason, Madison, did not 
take place. The slave-holders of those states have, 
on the contrary, added to the injustice of slave-hold- 
ing the cruelty and turpitude of slave-breeding and 
slave-exporting ; and, in diffusing this evil over the 
new regions of the south-west, they have found new 
inducements for continuing it among themselves. 
For the purpose of extending this slave market, they 
do not hesitate to involve the Union in disgraceful 
wars of conquest. Not content with the seizure of 
Texas, the annexation of Cuba is already suggested 
— to which Virginia might serve as a new Africa, the 
slave trade to that coast having been mainly cut off 
by the vigilance of the English cruisers. This let- 
alone policy, this waiting for the parties most imme- 
diately interested to take the lead, came near proving 
fatal even to Congress itself. The right of petition, 
even freedom of debate, seemed about to be extin- 
guished in that body. The Federal government has 
put itself forward as the champion and defender of 
slavery ; the antagonist, on this point, of all Christen- 
dom. What a change, even on the question of the 
African slave trade ! — that very government, which 
21* 



246 DESPOTISM 

had itself once proposed a mutual right of search on 
the coast of Africa, exerting all its efforts, and not 
without success, to defeat a treaty of that sort into 
which Britain had induced the great powers of Eu- 
rope to enter! The thraldom, thank God, into which 
Congress was fast sinking, has, by the steady efforts 
of a few noble men, at last been partially shaken off. 
The attention of the people has been aroused to the 
question— -Shall the Federal government be a slave- 
holding or an anti-slave-holding government? Ex- 
perience seems to show that any middle ground, 
practically speaking, is out of the question. If the 
Federal government is not the one, it must be the 
other. 

But supposing the Federal government to have 
power, to have a constitutional right to act in this 
matter, how is it to act ? Shall Congress employ 
force ? Shall a law be passed declaring the right of the 
southern negroes to freedom, and an army be marched 
into the southern states to enforce such law? Such 
rude and violent methods of effecting political changes 
correspond neither to the principles of our institutions 
nor to the enlightened philosophy of the present age. 
It is not the office of the Federal government to abol- 
ish slavery by a mere act of its own authority im- 
posed upon the slave-holding states — an act which 
might justly be denounced as arbitrary, and which 
the whole white population of the South would unite 
to resist. Great evils are not thus to be got rid of by 
a single blow. To be effectually and peacefully abol- 
ished, slavery must be abolished by the legislatures 
of the slave states themselves. There exist in all the 
slave states ample materials for a party ready to un- 
dertake that great and illustrious task. Some mov- 
ing of the dry bones has been of late discernible ; but, 
for the most part, the anti-slavery party of the South, 
strong, morally and intellectually, and by no means 
contemptible in point of numbers, lies at this moment 
prostrate, completely paralyzed by terror, and pre- 



IN AMERICA. 



247 



vented thereby from any movement or organiza- 
tion ; held down in as pitiable a state of fear and 
helplessness as can well be imagined. The great 
excitement of 1834 — the alarm then raised among 
the slave-holders by the symptoms of an anti-slavery 
movement at the North — caused the extemporaneous 
introduction into the southern states of a suppressive 
system, based apparently on the Spanish inquisition — 
but with the democratic improvements of turning 
every slave-holder into an inquisitor, and the misera- 
ble, uneducated mob of the southern villages and 
hamlets into spies and oificers — the proceedings, with- 
out any troublesome or tedious formalities, being reg- 
ulated by the code of Lynch law, the same parties 
acting in the fourfold capacity of accusers, witnesses, 
judges, and executioners. That same despotic spirit, 
indeed, which holds the slaves in subjection without 
law and against law, does not hesitate a moment to set 
aside all the most sacred principles of law, all our 
much-vaunted safeguards of personal security, for the 
sake of speedy vengeance upon those inclined in any 
way to question its authority. Such, indeed, is the 
just retribution of nature. Establish despotism over 
one class of the community, and it will soon extend 
itself over all the others. Give your neighbor a right 
to tyrannize over slaves, and he will soon assume a 
right to tyrannize over you. 

Yet it is to this down-trodden party, this humbled 
and silenced party, this party existing, indeed, as yet 
only in embryo, without organization or self-conscious- 
ness, these southern anti-slavery men, that we must 
look for the abolition of slavery. The spirit of des- 
potism must be encountered in the slave states them- 
selves, by a power potent enough to awe it down, and 
keep it under ; and this power can only be a mass of 
citizens combined together, acting in concert, and 
having such weight of social, and especially of po- 
litical influence, that it shall become necessary to 
respect their feelings, their opinions, and their rights. 
Such a combination must be formed in all the slave 



248 DESPOTISM 

states before the first effectual steps can be taken, we 
do not say towards the abolition of slavery nnerely, 
but even towards the enforcement of the rights of 
those nominally free ; those great rights of free dis- 
cussion and a free press which no despotism, or 
would-be despotism, willingly tolerates. 

Congress, however, or the friends of freedom in 
Congress, are not to wait till such a party rises up. 
It is their business to help it up, to reach out a 
hand to it, on every possible occasion. Could the 
immense patronage of the Federal government once 
be directed to that point, we may judge of the result 
likely to follow by the effect which that same patron- 
age has produced at the North, in a counter direction. 
It is by calling upon the Federal government, on 
every possible occasion that occurs, or can be made 
to occur, to abjure all responsibility for slavery and 
all countenance of it; it is by finding and making 
perpetual occasions to point out the evils of slavery 
in particular instances, its incompatibility with the 
" general welfare," and the obstacles which it opposes 
to the " common defence ; " — it is by imitating the ex- 
ample of steadfast old Cato, and repeating at every 
opportunity, in season and out of season, '' I think 
also that slavery ought to be abolished;" — such are 
the means by w^hich even a very few members of Con- 
gress may effect great things ; not indeed by way of 
direct legislation, — for direct legislation constitutes, 
after all, but a small part of the influence which Con- 
gress exerts, — but by keeping this subject constantly 
before the public mind ; enabling and compelling the 
slave-holders to see what they have hitherto so obsti- 
nately shut their eyes to; and what is of more im- 
portance yet, giving the non-slave-holding freemen of 
the South an opportunity to see what the slave-hold- 
ers hitherto have so dexterously kept out of their 
sight. 

Just in proportion as the anti-slavery party increases 
in Congress ; just in proportion as that body shall 
evince symptoms of a settled, firm, and steady oppo- 



IN AMERICA. 249 

sition to slavery ; just in the same proportion will the 
southern anti-slavery men be encouraged to confe.s3 
themselves, first to themselves, th?n to one another, 
and then to the world. Only through the medium 
of Congress, and the Federal government, can the 
anti-slavery sentiment of the North be brought into 
any active cooperation with the anti-slavery sentiment 
of the South; and surely, until northern representa- 
tives of non-slave-holding constituencies can stand up 
on the floor of Congress and boldly speak their minds 
upon the subject, and secure a hearing too, it is quite 
too much to expect any such boldness, or any such 
hearing, in the legislature of any slave-holding state. 

It needs, as we believe, only this free discussion to 
show that even the technical legality behind which 
slavery claims to entrench itself cannot be maintained. 
This point has hitherto been conceded to the slave- 
holders, hastily, without examination, and, as we be- 
lieve, without reason. The truth seems to be that, 
although the people of the southern states were will- 
ing, and a large majority of them desirous, to allow 
slavery to continue among them as a matter of fact, 
they left its legality to rest upon the enactments and 
practice of the colonial times, without undertaking 
by any fundamental act of sovereignty on their part 
to confer any new or additional legality upon it. The 
legality of American slavery rests, then, upon a colo- 
nial usage — a usage not only unsustained by the Eng- 
lish law, but, in several most important points, directly 
contradictory to it ; a usage totally incapable of fur- 
nishing any legal foundation for any claim of right ; 
a usage upon which neither the state constitutions 
nor the Federal constitution undertake to confer a 
legal character; and upon which, indeed, taking into 
account the very fundamental principles of the x4.mer- 
ican government, they could not confer a legal 
character. 

When the colonists set forth in their Declaration 
of Independence, as the justification and basis of the 
stand they had taken, the natural Right of all men to 



250 DESPOTISM 

life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, they must 
be esteemed as pledging themselves to the world, 
and to each other, for the recognition and mainte- 
nance of that right. Nor was this declaration the mere 
act of the Continental Congress, whose power might 
be disputed ; for it was distinctly and solemnly rat- 
ified, adopted, and confirmed by every individual state 
in the Union. From that moment, then, it was a 
solemn pledge on the part of all the states, and a tacit 
condition of the Union, that slavery should be done 
away with as soon as possible. By adopting, two 
years before, the non-importation agreement, known 
as the American Association, the states had already 
pledged themselves to import no more slaves ; a 
pledge from which they were never released, though 
the Carolinas and Georgia chose afterwards to violate 
it, and to insist on a constitutional permission to 
continue that violation for twenty years. The same 
understanding as to the abolition of slavery prevailed 
when the Federal constitution was adopted. Slavery 
was regarded as a transitory evil, to be speedily re- 
moved, and the greatest care was taken not to men- 
tion it by name, nor to recognize in that instrument 
any such idea as that of property in man. 

The northern states have waited a great while, pa- 
tiently, for their southern neighbors to carry out their 
agreement. If the conclusion should be arrived at, 
that the southern states are unable or unwilling to 
redeem their pledge, certainly the least we of the 
North can do is, to proclaim, every where, our con- 
viction of the utter illegality of this accursed institu- 
tion, and of the bad faith of the South in prolonging 
its existence. 

Nor, indeed, can it reasonably be expected that the 
men of the North will stop there. The abolition of 
slavery, not to mention how essential it is to the 
preservation of the rights and liberties of the free, is 
a debt due from the United States to the memory and 
honor of our Revolutionary fathers, to the principles 
of democracy, to human nature itself; and just in 



IN AMERICA. 251 

proportion as our southern brethren shall fail to take 
the lead in this inevitable enterprise, that leadership 
must of necessity devolve on us of the North. It 
has only been by professions of ultra democracy, of 
exceeding respect for the natural rights of men, and 
of opposition to all arbitrary and unnecessary author- 
ity, that the slave-holding body have been enabled to 
exercise so long-continued and so decided an influ- 
ence over our national politics. The time has now 
come — the ascendency of democratic ideas having, 
under southern patronage, been firmly established at 
the North, and the domination of the old aristocrat- 
ical cliques completely put dov^^n — that the northern 
democracy can return the favor by aiding the south- 
ern states in the substitution of a democracy like 
that of the North, in place of those slave-holding oli- 
garchies by' which the entire laboring population of 
the South, white as well as black, has hitherto been 
held in such entire subjection. And, in adopting 
such a course, the northern democracy will consult 
not more the spirit of their own policy than the true 
intent of the framers of the Federal constitution. For 
whatever disputes may be raised as to the precise 
intent of the framers of that instrument in partic- 
ular clauses, one thing at least is certain, — whatever 
monstrous assumptions to the contrary may have 
lately been countenanced in quarters where more 
knowledge and better feelings might naturally have 
been expected; — the framers of the constitution never 
intended, the people who ratified the constitution 
never intended, to found a slave-breeding and a sla- 
very-propagating republic. The barest suspicion that 
the constitution could operate to perpetuate the insti- 
tution of slavery would have caused its indignant 
rejection by all the northern and by a part of the 
southern states. The general intent of the framers 
of the constitution is clearly and comprehensively 
expressed in its preamble, by which its objects are 
declared to be, " To form a more perfect union, estab- 
lish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for 



252 



DESPOTISM 



the common defence, promote the general welfare, 
and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and 
our posterity." Now, to which of these great objects 
has not the existence among us of domestic slavery 
proved a stumbling-block from the day the first Con- 
tinental Congress met down to the current moment? 
So long as slavery continues, the union of the states 
never can be perfected; justice is but an empty name; 
our domestic tranquillity will always be in danger — 
and that even less from the slaves, reluctantly held in 
bondage, and watching an opportunity to throw off 
the yoke, than from the idle, turbulent, hot-headed, 
and insolent among their masters, who, not content 
with lynching private individuals, and even sovereign 
states of the Union in the persons of their representa- 
tives, threaten separation and civil war whenever 
thwarted in any of their pretensions. What aid does 
the institution of slavery afford to the com.mon de- 
fence ? Officers, perhaps, but neither men nor money. 
As to securing the blessings of liberty to ourselves 
and our posterity, the slave-holders, backed by the 
mercantile interest of the North, in which they have 
found a humble ,but zealous ally, have, within the 
last fifteen years, made not less than two desperate 
attempts entirely to suppress all freedom of speech 
and of the press, and to make universal that reign of 
terror so vigorously enforced during that entire period 
throughout the southern part of the Union ! 

And yet those who labor to eradicate this lasting 
and inevitable source of discord, this eating cancer 
of our liberties and peace, are accused of hostility to 
the union of the states — and that, too, by a set of po- 
litical pharisees, who, in parading their anxiety to 
carry out the alleged implied intentions of the framers 
of the constitution as to the return of runaway ne- 
groes, do at best but pay tithe of mint and cumin, 
while they wholly neglect those weightier matters, 
those great overruling intentions, not implied, alleged, 
made out by construction, or discovered by a resort 
to contemporaneous history, but proclaimed in the 



IN AMERICA, 253 

preamble to the constitution, and throughout the 
whole text of the instrument — the growth of the 
United States into a great, united, free republic I 

That which the fathers planned, and of which they 
laid the foundations, building upon them according 
to the measure of their means and enlightenment, it 
becomes us of this generation, with the advantage 
of fa? superior means, and greater experience, to carry 
out and perfect. 

That the abolition of slavery is by no means so 
impracticable a thing as many represent, and that 
even the slave-holders themselves may, by a reason- 
able regard to their claims to pecuniary indemnity, 
be induced heartily to concur in it, an attempt will be 
made to show in a subsequent treatise. 



SECTION IV. 

The Fugitive Act of 1850. 

It is upon the clause of the constitution of the 
United States for the delivery up of " persons held to 
service or labor under the laws " of any state escap- 
ing into another, that the fugitive slave act (com- 
monly so called) of 1850 is founded. That act, how- 
ever, it is to be observed, notwithstanding its popular 
title, and the avowed purpose of its enactment, says 
nothing, any more than the constitution itself, in di- 
rect terms, about slaves or slavery. Its application to 
the case of fugitive slaves proceeds entirely on the as- 
sumption that slavery exists in certain of the states 
not merely in fact but by law, so that under the de- 
scription of persons bound to service and labor un- 
der state laws slaves are included — an assumption 
which judges and commissioners may declare too 
plain to be argued about, or to require to be sustained 
22 



254 DESPOTISM 

by any reasons, but which, for all that, may be entire- 
ly groundless and gratuitous, as we have already at- 
tempted to show. 

Wholly independently, however, of the argument 
upon that point, or of the particular application of 
the act of 1850 to the case of runaway slaves, two 
distinct sets of objections have been taken to the con- 
stitutionality of that act, besides many others to its 
arbitrary spirit, and its grossly evident disposition (so 
abundantly illustrated as well by several of its pro- 
visions as by many of the proceedings which have 
taken place under it) to sacrifice the rights of persons 
claimed to the convenience and even to the rascality 
of persons claimant. 

I. The ground is taken, in the first place, that this 
return of fugitives from labor is a matter which be- 
longs, at least in its initiative, wholly and exclusively 
to the authorities and tribunals of the states, and with 
which Congress has no right to interfere, nor to au- 
thorize any body else to interfere, until the proceed- 
ing shall have resulted in a suit cognizable by the Fed- 
eral tribunals. The intention and effect of the clause 
in the Federal constitution respecting fugitives from 
labor seems to be, that no right to service under the 
laws of any state shall be defeated, notwithstand- 
ing any ditierences of local law, by any escape into 
another state ; but to the extent of recapturing such 
fugitive, — and if the services to which he is bound be 
of such a nature that the exaction of them is not per- 
mitted under the laws of the state in which he is 
found, still, of holding him for a period sufficient for 
his removal, — that right shall be recognized and en- 
forced by the tribunals of the state in which the fugi- 
tive is found; the proceedings of such state tribunals 
of course being liable, should the procedure take the 
form of a judicial contest to be transferred to or re- 
viewed by the Federal courts, under the general juris- 
diction given to them in all cases arising under the 
Federal constitution and laws, there to be proceeded 
with according to the general methods prescribed in 



IN AWERICA. I?55 

the judiciary acts. To give thus to a South Caroli- 
nian, for ins^^^ance, claiming service or labor from a 
fn£]:itive found in Massachusetts as due to hirn under 
South Carolina law, precisely the same right and the 
same means, neither more nor less, to reclaim that 
fugitive, which a Massachusetts man has in Massa- 
chusetts in the case of his runaway child or appren- 
tice, would seem to be quite as much as any reasona- 
ble slave-holder could ask; at all events quite as much 
as the Federal constitution ever intended to allow. 

According to this view of the matter, no special 
legislation, whether state or Federal, respecting fugi- 
tives from one state into another, is necessary, nor even 
allowable. The constitution of the United States 
being the supreme law of the land, and recognized 
as such by all the State courts and authorities, its 
provision respecting fugitives is quite sufficient to 
give, in each state of the Union, through the agency 
of the state tribunals and state authorities in the first 
place, or if they fail of their duty, then through the 
agency of the Federal courts, the same protection 
and the same justice alike to all claimants and to 
all fugitives, to whatsoever state they may belong, or 
upon the laws of whatsoever state their respective 
rights may be based. 

Nor is this view of the case, so reasonable and sat- 
isfactory in itself, and so free from the multifarious 
difficulties and objections to which any other inter- 
pretation of the clause in question is exposed,* want- 
ing in support from the most respectable quarters. 
That Congress has no power to legislate for the re- 
turn of fugitives from labor, and that the act of 1793 
on that subject (and of course the act of 1850) is 
unconstitutional, was elaborately maintained by Chan- 
cellor Walworth, of New York, by his opinion given 
in the New York Court of Errors in the case of Jack 

* «• If, as seems to be admitted, legislation is necessary to carry 
into effect the object of the constitution, what becomes of the right 
when there is no law on the subject ?" Opinion of Judge Thomp- 
6011 in Prigg v. Pennsylvariia, 16 Peters 631. 



256 DESPOTISM 

V. Martin, (14 Wendall, 507) ; and even Mr. Webster, 
in his famous 7th of March speech, emphatically de- 
clared himself to entertain the same view. "I have 
always thought," such are his words, " that the con- 
stitution addressed itself to the legislatures of the 
states, or to the states themselves. It says that those 
persons escaping to other states * shall be delivered 
' up,' and I confess I have always been of the opinion 
that it was an injunction upon the states them, selves. 
When it is said that a person escaping into another 
state, and coming, therefore, within the jurisdiction 
of that state, shall be delivered up, it seems to me 
the import of the clause is, that the state itself, in 
obedience to the constitution, shall cause him to be 
delivered up. That is my judgment. I have always 
entertained that opinion, and I entertain it now. But 
when the subject, some years ago, was before the Su- 
preme Court, the majority of the judges held that the 
power to cause fugitives from service to be delivered 
up was a power to be exercised under the authority 
of this (i. e., the Federal) government." The case 
here alluded to is that of Prigg' v. Pennsylvania, 
(16 Peters, 539,) of which we shall presently have 
occasion to speak. 

The necessity failing, of any legislation, and espe- 
cially of any Federal legislation, to carry into etlect 
the clause for the delivering up of fugitives from labor, 
the only other ground on w^iich any such Federal 
legislation can be or has been attempted to be sus- 
tained, is the mere ground of precedent — the notion 
so great a favorite with a certain class of lawyers, 
more learned than profound, that usage makes law, 
or rather, that the law is to be determined by usage. 
It is said that the right of Congress to legislate on 
this subject cannot now be questioned, because that 
right was exercised by the second Congress, some 
sixty years ago, and has ever since been acquiesced 
in ; an argument that seems to count for nothing the 
adverse opinions of such lawyers as Walworth, Web- 
ster, and others to be presently mentioned. 



IN AMERICA. 257 

The advocates of this estoppel have a great deal to 
say (see Nelson's opinion in Jack v. Martin^ in the 
Supreme Court of New York, 12 Wendall, 311) 
about the large number of members of the Federal 
convention who sat also in the Congress of 1793, 
and of the great and special knowledge which they, 
and the other members of that Congress, must be 
supposed to have had of the intimate intentions of 
the framers of the Federal constitution, and of the 
true meaning and proper interpretation of that instru- 
ment. But to all this there are two very sufficient 
answers. Whatever knowledge there might have 
been in the Congress of 1793 of the secret history 
of the Federal constitution, and of the expectations, 
hopes, wishes, or intentions of the individuals con- 
cerned in framing it, or procuring its ratification, we 
of the present day — since we have, besides the text of 
the constitution, the labors of more than sixty years 
bestowed by the courts and the bar upon its interpre- 
tation and exposition — are in a vastly better position 
for apprehending its real legal purview and effect 
than the men of 1793, or even than the very men 
that made it, who, in all the questions that speedily 
arose as to its interpretation, were even less unani- 
mous than the expositors of to-day. In point of fact, 
the members of the Federal convention, of whom 
many subsequently sat in the early Congresses, seem 
in general to have had but a very imperfect and con- 
fused idea of the real nature of the national govern- 
ment which they had created, and of its true relations 
to the governments of the states. The idea of two, 
or rather of sixteen coordinate governments so inti- 
mately intertwined, and yet each, in its own sphere, 
sovereign and independent, was at first very ditlicult 
to be apprehended, at least in its consequences; 
and no inconsiderable part of the legislation of 
the early Congresses — and the fugitive act of 1793 
affords an instance of it — proceeded upon the false 
idea that in the execution of its own powers. Con- 
gress and the Federal executive had a right not 
22* 



258 DESPOTISM 

only to employ but to command the officers of the 
states. 

But, in the second place, quite apart from the errors 
into which a body no better suited for such purposes 
than Congress would be likely to fall, especially at 
first, as to the extent of its authority, — the whole the- 
ory of the scope of Federal legislation, upon which 
those wiio had the control of the early Congresses 
proceeded, was subsequently greatly modified. The 
Federalists, as they called themselves, the consolida- 
tionists, as they were considered by their opponents, 
who controlled the early Congresses, and who, like 
the present Union men, so called, professed a special 
attachment to the constitution and the Union, pro- 
ceeded upon the idea of making a strong national 
government ; indeed, of drawing within the range of 
Federal legislation every thing that might be most 
conveniently so dealt with — that is to say, about 
every thing. The Democratic or State Rights party 
held^ on the other hand, that the legislation of Con- 
gress ought to be strictly limited to cases expressly 
authorized by the constitution. Such was the doc- 
trine so emphatically set forth in the famous Resolu- 
tions of '98 ; and such, at this moment, is the doc- 
trine not only ostentatiously professed by those at 
the head of the Federal government, but which, in a 
certain modified form at least, has obtained — upon all 
questions not involving the convenience of slave-hold- 
ers — pretty entire possession even of the United States 
tribunals. But surely it cannot be expected, without 
counting more fully than facts would seem yet to 
warrant upon the stupidity and patience of the 
North, that a liberal interpretation of the powers 
of Congress, rejected in all cases in which the indus- 
trial and pecuniary interests of the North have been 
thought to be concerned, will be tolerated for the 
sole purpose of propping up the crumbling system of 
southern despotism. It was natural enough for Mr. 
Webster, both as an ancient Federalist and as a modern 
Union man, to yield up as he did, in his 7th of March 



IN AMERICA. 259 

speech, his own deliberate opinion, long held, and 
still unaltered, to the formal judgment even of a 
mere majority of the judges of the Supreme Court 
of the United States, — for it was the policy of" the 
old Federal, as it now is of our modern, self-styled 
Union party, (more commonly known as Silver-Grays, 
or Old Fogies,) to exalt that Supreme Court into a 
final arbiter, if not indeed an infallible judge, not 
in private controversies only, but in all political ques- 
tions also, involving the interpretation — as what po- 
litical question does not ? — of the Federal constitu- 
tion and laws. But to see Franklin Pierce, who, 
during his six years' service in the Senate, sat a silent, 
humble, admiring disciple at the feet of Calhoun; 
who, as presidential candidate, was the choice, be- 
cause the submissive catechumen, of the Democratic 
State Rights party, whose doctrines he took speedy 
occasion, after his election, to glorify and endorse ; 
and who, as president, professes to walk in the foot- 
steps of Andrew Jackson, he who boldly claimed for 
himself, and for all the coordinate branches of the gov- 
ernment, the right to act under the constitution as 
they understood it, even in spite of decisions of the 
Supreme Court ; to see this Democratic State Rights 
president inconsistently striking in with that con- 
sistent old Federalist, Mr. Webster, and running in 
his company, on behalf of slavery, into the most ultra 
Federal extremes — this is a spectacle rather trying to 
those who wish to regard the rising leaders of the 
young democracy of the North as at least tolerably 
true and sincere men, and not, as their political op- 
ponents so indiscriminately represent them, mere un- 
principled scamps in pursuit of office, ready to profess 
and to do every thing tending thereto. 

11. But even admitting that the surrender of fugi- 
tives from labor is a matter exclusively within the 
scope of Federal authority, and not only a proper sub- 
ject for the legislation of Congress, but one upon 
Vv^hich Congress is imperatively bound to legislate, 
(as was held by the majority of the Supreme Court 



260 DESPOTISM 

of the United States in the case of Prigg v. Penri' 
sylvania,) nevertheless, the act of 1850 appear? to be 
grossly unconstitutional in not less than three impor- 
tant particulars. 

1. It confers jurisdiction concurrent with that of 
the judges of the Supreme and Circuit Courts of the 
United States upon a set of commissioners, mere ap- 
pointees of the Circuit and Territorial United States 
Judges; holding office at the will of those who ap- 
point them; paid by fluctuating and uncertain fees, 
and, in fugitive cases, bribed to decide in favor of 
the claimant by a double fee in case they do so; un- 
commissioned by the president, and unsworn — when 
the constitution of the United States expressly re- 
quires that all judges, whether of the Supreme or 
inferior courts shall hold office during good behavior, 
and shall, at stated times, receive for their services a 
compensation which shall not be diminished during 
their continuance in office; shall be nominated by the 
president and confirmed by the senate ; shall be sworn 
to support the constitution of the United States, and 
shall be commissioned by the president. 

2. It deprives the alleged fugitive of the right of 
trial by jury. 

3. It substantially denies the writ of habeas corpus 
by its prohibition to all courts. State or Federal, to 
inquire under that writ, or any other, into the grounds 
of the commissioner's certificate, or to correct any 
errors of fact or law into which he may have fallen. 

Although Mr. Webster, in his 7th of March speech, 
announced his intention to support the bill then on 
the table of the senate and which subsequently be- 
came the act of 1850, " with all its provisions, to 
its fullest extent," " with some amendments to it," 
(which, however, he found no opportunity to offer) 
— yet he carefully avoided on that occasion the 
slightest allusion to its odious and questionable de- 
tails. Instead of that he substituted "a solemn ap- 
peal to all the sober and sound minds at the North, 
as a question of morals and a question of conscience, 



IN AMERICA. 261 

what right they had in their legislative capacity, or 
any other capacity, to endeavor to get round the con- 
stitution, or to embarrass the free exercise of the rights 
secured by the constitution to the persons whose slaves 
escape from them." A perilous appeal, in the mak- 
ing of which the orator seems to have forgotten that 
sober and sound minds, honest citizens with no polit- 
ical expectations or hopes of mercantile profit to 
warp their better judgments, might be apt, at the 
same time, to ask themselves, as a question of mor- 
als and a question of conscience, and with even 
stronger emphasis too, what right they had in their 
legislative capacity, or in any other capacity, to open 
a door to kidknapping, or to put to the slightest risk 
or danger the personal liberty of a single fellow-cit- 
izen, hovrever humble his position, empty his purse, 
or dark his complexion. Such persons, so appealed 
to, might be apt to call to mind the adjudication of 
" another Daniel come to judgment," a case quite as 
generally known and approved as any recorded in the 
law books. 

Portia. A pound of that same merchant's flesh is thine ; 
The court awards it, and the law doth give it. 

Shj/lock. Most rightful judge ! 

Portia. And you must cut this flesh from off his breast ; 
Tiie law allows it, and the court awards it. 

Shylock. Most learned judge ! — A sentence : Come. Prepare. 

Portia. Tarry a little : — there is something else. 
This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood ; 
The words expressly are, a pound of flesh. 
Take then thy bond, take thou thy pound of flesh; 
But in the cutting it, if thou dost shed 
One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods 
Are, by the laws of Venice, confiscate 
Unto the state of Venice. 

Gratiano. O upright judge ! — Mark, Jew. O learned judge ! 

Skylock. Is that the law ? 

Portia. Thyself shall see the act ; 
For as thou urgest justice, be assured 
Thou shalt have justice more than thou desir'st 

Though Mr. Webster, in his 7th of March speech, 
' — perhaps on the principle that it is hard to touch 



2(j2 despotism 

pitch without being defiled by it, — said not a word 
on behalf of the particular provisions of the bill, 
which, nevertheless, he so fully endorsed ; a bill 
yielding up not merely the pound of flesh alleged to 
be stipulated in the bond, but, along with it, the very 
heart's blood of freedom ; yet he was soon driven, by 
the storm of indignation on the part of many of the 
soberest and soundest minds of the North which that 
endorsement raised against him, to attempt an apol- 
ogy for the misshapen monster into standing god- 
father to which he had been so unfortunately whee- 
dled and seduced by such busy gossips as Hangman 
Foote. This he did in his letter to the citizens of 
Newburyport of May iDth following the delivery of 
his 7th of March speech, and containing a double 
apology for the bill in question — first, a disquisition 
on the nature of the process provided by it, and, sec- 
ondly, an attempt to justify it by precedent. 

It would appear reasonable to judge of the nature 
of any proceeding by its effects, which effects in the 
case under consideration are sufficiently obvious. A 
man lately possessed of freedom is converted into a 
chattel, and as such is delivered up to a claimant 
who has the whole power of the United States to 
back him in carrying otl' this chattelized man or wo- 
man to a slave state, where the mere fact of posses- 
sion gives to the possessor the legal character and 
the almost unbounded legal prerogatives and powers 
of master and owner, including imprisonment at 
pleasure, and the unrestricted use of the lash and of 
starvation, with no liability to question for it, if death 
do not immediately ensue. Yet we are gravely told 
by Mr. Webster — who, in defect of other arguments, 
and destitute, as usual, of all originality, has eagerly 
caught at a suggestion dropped probably without 
much consideration thirty years before by Chief Jus- 
tice Tilghman, of Pennsylvania, in a case which we 
shall presently have occasion to consider — that a 
claim, an adjudication upon it, and the delivery up 
of the adjudged chattel into the thus unrestricted 



IN AMERICA. 263 

power of the claimant, is no judicial act, no trial, 
nothing but a mere executive procedure preliminary 
and auxiliary to a trial, a mere case of extradition, a 
sending back the fugitive to the state whence he 
came, in order that his right to freedom may there 
be tested. 

Conscious sophistry and studied falsehood if not 
somewhat excusable — in a lawyer — are at least some- 
what intelligible when there is an object to be an- 
swered by them. This suggestion of Tilgh man's, 
adopted by Webster, notwithstanding an express 
ruling to the contrary by the majority of the Supreme 
Court of the United States in the case of Prigg v. 
Ferinsylvania, (see 16 Peters, 616,) being afterwards 
more fully elaborated and artfully set forth in a legal 
opinion by an adroit lawyer, was soon followed by 
that lawyer's elevation to a seat on the bench of 
that same Supreme Court by the side of the judge of 
the adjoining circuit, whose previous promotion had 
a similar antecedent. But so far as concerns the vin- 
dication of the Fugitive Act of 1850, this elaborated 
lie is perfectly gratuitous, because even if it were the 
truth, it would not help the matter in the least. • The 
framers of the Federal constitution were neither so 
foolish nor so cruel as to hold out a temptation to 
kidnappers by giving to every mere private volunteer 
claimant from any slave state, or pretending to be 
from some slave state, the right to carry oil", on his 
mere claim, supported wholly by his own oath and 
other ex parte evidence, any resident in any free state, 
who thus, far removed from all friends and help, might 
be put to prove his freedom in a country where his 
very complexion alone would establish a prima facie 
case against him. The constitution contains no pro- 
vision for delivering up fugitives from labor to parties 
claimant to be conveyed elsewhere, to the end that 
the validity of the claim to their service may there be 
determined. It provides only for a delivery to the 
party to whom such service orlabor maybe "due." As 
to any conveyance elsewhere, not a word is said about 



264 DESPOTISM 

it in the constitution ; that is only an incident to the 
right to service or labor ; and by the express terms of 
the provision, no delivery is required, and of course 
no such removal can take place till it is first estab- 
lished that such service or labor is due, and due to 
the claimant. And, notwithstanding what he wrote 
in his Newburyport letter, Mr. Webster was fully 
aware of the true character, in this respect, of the 
clause in question. This abundantly appears from 
his own draft of a Fugitive Bill in amendment of the 
act of 1793, which, by a sort of judicial blindness, 
such as often betrays prevaricators into furnishing 
evidence against themselves, he was led to lay before 
the senate — for show, however, merely, not for use — 
sonrie three weeks after the date of his Newburyport 
letter, and perhaps as a supplement to it. That draft, 
he told the senate, had been prepared early in the 
session — (and probably it was to go with it that the 
greater part of his 7th of March speech had also been 
prepared) — in conference with some of the most em- 
inent members of the profession, and especially with 
" a high judicial authority," [Judge McLean ?] greatly 
experienced in questions of this kind. These eminent 
advisers had not, indeed, saved the great "expounder 
of the constitution " from the obvious oversight of 
conferring upon commissioners of the United States 
courts complete judicial authority, including the de- 
termination upon evidence of "the identity of the 
[alleged?] fugitive, the right of the claimant, and the 
existence of slavery in the state whence the [alleged ?] 
fugitive [was said to have ?] absconded." But while 
thus, for the convenience of the slave-holders, uncer- 
emoniously overriding the constitution in a point as 
to which, at least, Mr. Webster's eminent judicial 
adviser might have been expected to be specially 
vigilant, some attention was still paid to that instru- 
ment in another important respect, in which the act 
of 1850 entirely disregards it. Mr. Webster's draft 
of a bill expressly provided " that if the [alleged ?] fugi- 
tive shall deny that he owes service or labor to the 



IN AxMEKICA. 265 

claimant under the laws of the state where he was 
[alleged to be?] held, and after being duly cautioned 
as to the solemnities and consequences of an oath, 
shall swear to the same, the commissioner or judge 
shall forthwith summon a jury of twelve to try the 
right of the claimant, who shall be sworn to try the 
cause according to evidence, and the commissioner or 
judge shall preside at the trial, and determine the com- 
petency of the proof." 

That the Circuit Court commissioners thus invested 
by this draft, as well as by the act of 1850 with high 
judicial powers, lacked, in several important respects 
already mentioned, the constitutional qualifications 
expressly required in judges, was too plain, when once 
pointed out, to be denied. Hence the attempt to con- 
vert the powers bestowed upon them by the act of 
1850 into a merely extraditionary authority — an after- 
thought, which owes all the little plausibility it has, 
first, to the accidental juxtaposition, in the text of the 
Federal constitution, of the provision for the delivery 
up of fugitives from labor on '' the claim of the party 
to whom such labor may be c^we," with another and 
wholly distinct provision, for delivering up, " on de- 
mand of the executive authorities of the state," fugi- 
tives " charged^ in any state, with treason, felony, or 
other crimes, to be removed to the state having juris- 
diction of the crime;" and secondly, to a like accident- 
al connection of the two subjects in the old fugitive 
act of 1793. How the two subjects happened to be 
brought into juxtaposition in the text of the constitu- 
tion has been shown already in the preceding section. 
How they happened to be also brought together in the 
act of 1793, we shall proceed to show, — to do which 
will lead us back to Mr. Webster's second apology for 
the bill of 1850, contained in his Newburyport letter — 
his allegation that the bill of 1850 in principle was 
but the same thing with the act of 1793. 

Of the act of 1793 Mr. Webster's letter gives the fol- 
lowing history. " The act of Congress of the 12th of 
February, 1793, appears to have been well considered, 
23 



266 DESPOTISM 

and to have passed with little opposition. There is 
no evidence known to me that any body, at the time, 
regarded any of its provisions as repugnant to religion, 
liberty, the constitution, or humanity. The two 
senators of Massachusetts, at that time, were the dis- 
tinguished legislator and patriot of your own county, 
George Cabot, and that other citizen of Massachu- 
setts, among the most eminent of his day for talent, 
purity of character, and every virtue, Caleb Strong. 
Mr. Cabot indeed was one of the committee for pre- 
paring the bill. It appears to have passed the senate 
without a division. In the house of representatives 
it was supported by Mr. Goodhue, Mr. Gerry, — both, I 
believe, of your county of Essex, (Mr. Goodhue af- 
terwards a senator of the United States, and Mr. 
Gerry afterwards vice-president of the United States,) 
Mr. Ames, Mr. Bourne, Mr. Leonard, and Mr. Sedge- 
wick, members from Massachusetts, and was passed 
by a vote of forty-eight to seven ; of these seven one 
being from Virginia, one from Maryland, one from New 
York, and four from the New England States, and of 
these four one, Mr. Thacher, from Massachusetts.* 

" I am not aware that there exists any published 
account of the debates on the passage of this act. I 
have been able to find none. I have searched the origi- 
nal files, however, and I find among the papers several 
propositions for modifications and amendments of va- 
rious kinds, but none suggesting the propriety of any 
jury trial in the state where the party should be ar- 
rested." 

This history of the act of 1793 is tolerably correct so 
far as it goes. But it omits some details as to the 
origin of that act curious in themselves, and some- 
what essential to the argument, and which therefore 
we proceed to supply. On the 11th of May 1788, a 

* Mr. Thacher, it is proper to note, was, in these early Congresses, the 
only consistent and uniform New England opposer of slavery and all 
its pretensions. In those times, indeed for the first thirty years sub- 
sequent to the adoption of the Federal constitution, almost all the op- 
position to slavery came from Pennsylvania and New Jersey. 



IN AMERICA. 267 

month or two before the Federal constitution became, 
by the ratification of nine states, an authoritative act, 
a negro named John was seized in the state of Penn- 
sylvania, (probably under the allegation that he was 
a runaway slave,) by certain persons in disguise, who 
bound him and carried him olf. On the 11th of No- 
vember following, bills of indictment were found 
against one McGuire and two others, as having kid- 
napped John, and taken him out of the state with in- 
tent to sell him as a slave. This proceeding was 
brought to the notice of Governor Mifllin on the 13th 
of May, 1791, by a memorial of the "Pennsylvania 
Society for promoting the abolition of slavery, the 
relief of free negroes unlawfully held in bondage, and 
for improving the condition of the African race," in 
which memorial it was further stated that the indicted 
parties had precipitately fled from justice either into 
Virginia, where John was held in a state of slavery 
by one Nicholas Casey, residing near Romney, or else 
into the newly erected state of Kentucky. 

Shortly after the receipt of this memorial, Mifflin 
addressed an official letter to Beverly Randolph, gov- 
ernor of Virginia, enclosing the indictment, and the 
memorial, and requesting him to take the proper steps 
to cause the fugitives from justice to be delivered up, 
as provided for in the constitution of the United 
States. This letter, with its enclosures. Governor Ran- 
dolph submitted to James Innis, then attorney gen- 
eral of Virginia, who soon after gave an opinion to 
the following effect : 1st. That by the laws of Virginia 
the matter charged in the indictments would amount, 
as between the individual parties, only to a trespass, 
and as between the offenders and the commonwealth 
only to a breach of the peace ; that the trespass 
might as well be sued for in Virginia as in Pennsylva- 
nia, and that, to an indictment for a mere breach of 
the peace, the defendants might appear by attorney, 
so that it would be soon enough to deliver them up 
after they were convicted. On the presumption, how- 
ever, that the offence charged stood on the same 



268 DESPOTISM 

ground in Pennsylvania that it did in Virginia, it was 
of too trifling a nature to come under the description 
of the term crime, as used in the Federal constitution. 
2d. That the demand was insuffi^aent, in not containing 
any proof that the persons demanded were in the 
state. 3d. That if the delivery and removal of the 
persons demanded could be eflected at all, it must be 
under the authority of the constitution of the United 
States; but as neither the laws of Virginia nor those 
of Congress directed the mode, nor delegated any 
authority by which the magistracy of the state could 
acquire any legal control over the persons demanded, 
no such delivery as requested could be made. 

This opinion having been transmitted to Mifflin, 
with Governor Randolph's regrets that no means had 
yet been provided for carrying into effect so important 
an article of the Federal constitution, it was forthwith 
laid before President Washington, with copies of all 
the other documents, enclosed in a letter from Mifflin, 
in which he pointed out Innis's apparent ignorance of 
the act of Pennsylvania under which the indictments 
had been found, (and which indeed had only been en- 
acted March 29, 1788,) by which the forcibly carry- 
ing any person out of the state to be sold as a slave 
was subjected to a fine of a hundred pounds, and im- 
prisonment to hard labor for not less than six nor 
more than twelve months.* 

Washington, thus appealed to, submitted the case, 
and all the papers connected with it, to Edmund 
Randolph, late governor of Virginia, then attorney 
general of the United States, who, on the 20th of July, 
gave a very lucid opinion upon it. And here let us 
observe, that no contemporary authority could be 
greater than Edmund Randolph's as to the true in- 
terpretation of the constitution. No member of the 
Federal convention, not even Madison himself, had 

* This act had been copied from one passed just before in Massa- 
chusetts, where a great excitement had been prodviced by the 
enticement, at Boston, of three colored persons on board a vessel, in 
which they were carried to the West Indies and sold as slaves. 



IN AMERICA. 269 

taken a more active part in framing it, while, as 
a lawyer, he had then, and has since had, very lew 
equals, and no superiors. Randolph's opinion em- 
braced the following points : 1st. That an indictment 
found was a sufiicient charge on which to base a de- 
mand, under the clause of the constitution of the 
United States, respecting fugitives from justice. 2d. 
That the matter charged in the Pennsylvania indict- 
ments was a crime within the meaning of that clause, 
and that Innis was mistaken in supposing that the 
defendants could plead to those indictments by attor- 
ney. 3d. That some proof W'Ould seem to be necessa- 
ry, more than had been offered in this case, that the 
parties demanded had fled from justice, and had been 
found in the state on which the demand was made. 
4th. That, these requisites being fulfilled, no laiv, either 
state or federal, ivas necessary to authorize their arrest 
and delivery. " To deliver up," said Randolph, — and 
the argument appears to be wholly unanswerable, — 
" to deliver up is an acknowledged federal duty; and 
the law couples ivith it the right of using' cdl incident' 
cd measures ifi order to discharge it. I will not in- 
quire how far these incidental means, if opposed to 
the constitution and laws of Virginia, ought notwith- 
standing to be exercised, because McGuire and his 
associates may be surrendered without calling upon 
any public officer of that state. Private persons may 
be employed and clothed with a special authority. 
The attorney general [of Virginia] agrees that a law 
of the United States might so ordain ; and loherein 
does a genuine distinction exist betweeti a poiver de- 
ducible from the constitution, or incidental to a duty 
imposed by the constitution, and a poiver given by Con- 
gress as auxiliary to the execution of such a duty ? 

" From these premises I must conclude that it would 
have been more precise in the governor of Pennsylania 
to transmit to the governor of Virginia an authenti- 
cated copy of the law^ creating the offence ; that it 
was essential that he should transmit sufficient evi- 
dence of McGuire and others having fled from the 
23* 



270 DESPOTISM 

justice of the former, and being found in the latter; 
that without that evidence the executive of Virginia 
ought not to have delivered them up ; that icith it 
they ought not to refuse. The governor of Pennsyl- 
vania, however, appears to be anxious that the matter 
should be laid before Congress, and perhaps such a 
step might content all scruples."* 

This opinion of Randolph's was sent by Washing- 
ton to Mifflin, who promised, in reply, to renew his 
demand, accompanied with the additional evidence 
pointed out by Randolph. Of the result we are not 
informed ; but when the second Congress came to- 
gether, not long after, for its first session, all the 
papers, agreeably to Mifflin's original request, were laid 
by the president before that body. These papers 
were suffered, in both houses, to lie on their tables 
undisturbed. The opinion of Randolph was decided 
and emphatic, that to carry out the provision of 
the constitution respecting fugitives from justice, no 
legislation was necessary ; and if not necessary, why, 
then, not constitutional, — though that was a considera- 
tion as yet not much attended to, — since the legislative 
power of Congress does not extend to the satisfying of 
scruples, but only to cases in which authority to legis- 
late is expressly given, or is necessary to carry 
out powers conferred by the constitution on the gen- 
eral government — to neither of which categories did 
this case belong. In the course, however, of the next 
session, a committee was appointed in the senate, 
consisting of Johnston, of North Carolina, Cabot, of 
Massachusetts, and Reed, of Delaware, " to consider 
the expediency of a law respecting fugitives from 
justice, and persons escaping from the service of their 



* It is rather curious that, although several judges have referred, 
in their opinions, to the origin of the act of 1793, and the correspond- 
ence between Governor Mifflin and Randolph, not one of them 
has even hinted at the existence of Attorney General Randolph's 
opinion, which is republished, however, along with the other docu- 
ments, in Lowrie & Franklin's great folio Collection of American 
State Papers, Miscellaneous Documents, vol. i. p. 39. 



IN AMERICA. 



271 



masters, and to report by bill, (if they think proper ;) " 
which committee, about a month after, did report a 
bill, which bill, after some modifications, passed into 
the fugitive act of 1793. 

That act consists of four sections, the first two of 
which, relating to fugitives from justice, have been 
often vouched in to support the right of Congress to 
legislate respecting fugitives from labor. They are 
used for that purpose by Story, who, speaking on 
behalf of himself and seven other judges of the Su- 
preme Court of the United States, in Prigg' v. Penn^ 
sijlvania, (p. 620,) triumphantly flourishes the consti- 
tutionality of those sections as never having been 
called in question, and their provisions as having been 
uniformly acted upon by all the state executives. And 
for the best of reasons, too. These sections require 
nothing which, independently of the act of 1793, the 
governors of the states w^ere not bound to do by the 
constitution itself; and though having no authority 
as a law, and in that respect a work of supereroga- 
tion, they may, doubtless, have been convenient as 
suggesting a uniform method of complying with the 
requisition of the constitution. As to the penalty 
inflicted by the second section on persons rescuing 
fugitives while under transportation, the constitution- 
ality of that provision seems to rest upon the same 
alleged authority in Congress, under which the Federal 
courts sustained the constitutionality of the Sedition 
law, and of the act to punish counterfeiters of the biUs 
of the Bank of the United States ; and I therefore turn 
it over, without further comment, to be dealt with by 
the adherents of the Resolutions of '98, in which both 
those penal acts were specially and emphatically de- 
nounced as unconstitutional, for want of power in 
Congress to enact them. Yet, to help the better 
to a decision of the point, I wiU venture to suggest 
the inquiry, whether the governors of the states could 
be subjected, by federal legislation, to fine and im- 
prisonment, for declining to surrender fugitives from 
justice ? 



272 DESPOTISM 

We come now to the two latter sections of the act 
of 1793, — those relating to fugitives from labor. 

" For many years," so we are told by Mr. Webster 
in his Newbury port letter, " little or no complaint was 
made against this law, nor was it supposed to be 
guilty of the offences and enormities which have since 
been charged upon it. It was passed for the purpose 
of complying with a direct and solemn injunction 
of the constitution. It did no more than was be- 
lieved to be necessary to accomplish that single pur- 
pose ; and it did that in a cautious, mild manner, 
to be every where conducted according to judicial 
proceeding's. 

" I confess I see no more objections to the provis- 
ions of this law than was seen by Mr. Cabot, Mr. 
Strong, Mr. Goodhue, and Mr. Gerry ; and such pro- 
visions appear to me, as they appeared to them, to be 
absolutely necessary, if we mean to fulfil the duties 
positively and peremptorily enjoined upon us by the 
constitution of the country." [How so, if, in Mr. 
Webster's judgment, as declared in his 7th of March 
speech, the constitutional injunction was entirely on 
the states ?] 

" But since the agitation caused by the abolition 
societies and abolition presses has, to such an extent, 
excited the public mind, these provisions have been 
rendered obnoxious and odious. Unwearied efforts 
have been made, and too successfully, to rouse the 
passions of the people against them, and under the 
cry of universal freedom, and under that other cry, 
that there is a rule for the government of public men 
and. private men ivhich is of superior obligation to the 
constitution of the country., several of the states have 
enacted laws to hinder, obstruct and defeat the enact- 
ments in this act of Congress to the utmost of their 
power." 

Such are the representations of Mr. Webster ; such 
is his attempt to hide the nakedness of the act of 1850 
and his own under the skirts of the act of 1793, and 
of its respectable authors and supporters. Those of 



IN AMERICA. 273 

them mentioned by Mr. Webster were all Federalists, 
(with the single exception of Gerry) some of them 
very ultra PY^deralists, but not one of them disposed 
to erect the Federal constitution either into a Diana 
of Ephesus by the perpetual shouting of whose name 
all gainsayers were to be silenced, or into a golden 
calf, which priests and people were alike to fall down to 
and worship, to the forgetfulness of any Higher Law. 
It is due, therefore, to the memory of these worthy 
men, and no less so to the assailants of the act of 
1793, to state, that although that act was complained 
of from the very moment of its enactment by the 
Pennsylvania Abolition Society and others in repeated 
memorials to Congress, as opening altogether too 
wide and dangerous a door to kidnappers, yet that 
the indignation against it, to the results of which Mr. 
Webster more particularly refers, grew mainly not so 
much out of any thing really contained in the act 
itself, or intended by those who enacted it, as out of 
a most ungracious, cruel, and gratuitous interpretation 
forced out of it by a set of " consummate lawyers " of 
the Scott school, — men who regard personal rights 
in comparison with the protection of property, at 
least the personal rights of the poor and helpless, as 
nothing; and who, ridiculously expecting to chain 
up and tie down the natural sentiments of justice and 
equity by the dry withes of their subtle ingenuity, in 
attempting, like the authors of the act of 1850, to 
lay a rising breeze, succeeded only, as the authors of 
that act have done, in raising a whirlwind. 

An examination of the brief Federal statute book 
of 1793, — for then it was brief, — will lead us to the 
evident model after which the fugitive act of 1793 
was drawn ; which model will not a little assist us to 
ascertain the idea entertained by those wiio framed 
the act of 1793, and by those who passed it with so^ 
little debate, of its real meaning and practical opera- 
tion. 

Among the acts passed by the first Congress was 
one, approved July 20th, 1790, " For the government 



274 



DESPOTISM 



and regulation of seamen in the merchant service," 
chiefly modelled after the English acts of parliaments 
on that subject, and of which the 7th section con- 
tained the following provisions : " That if any seaman 
or mariner, who shall have signed a contract to perform 
a voyage, shall, at any port or place, desert, or shall 
absent himself from such ship or vessel without leave 
of the master, or officer commanding in the absence 
of the master, it shall be lawful for any justice of the 
peace within the United States (upon complaint of 
the master) to issue his warrant to apprehend such 
deserter, and bring him before such justice ; and if it 
shall then appear, by due proof, that he has signed a 
contract within the intent and meaning of this act, 
and that the voyage agreed for is not finished, altered, 
or the contract otherwise dissolved, and that such 
seaman or mariner has deserted the ship or vessel, or 
absented himself without leave, the said justice shall 
commit him to the house of correction or common 
jail of the city, town, or place, there to remain until 
the said ship or vessel shall be ready to proceed on 
her voyage, or till the master shall require his discharge, 
and then to be delivered to the said master, he paying 
all the costs of such commitment, and deducting the 
same out of the wages due to such seaman or mariner." 
Now, Mr. Cabot, one of the members of the com- 
mittee of three by which the act of 1793 was reported, 
was not only a merchant, but he had been a shipmas- 
ter; and it was undoubtedly he who suggested to his 
colleagues this provision respecting fugitive seamen, 
as a model to be followed in the case of other fugi- 
tives from labor. Hence the 3d section of the act of 
1793, which provides, " That when a person held to 
labor in any of the United States, or in either of the 
territories on the north-west or south of the river Ohio, 
under the laws thereof, shall escape into any other of 
'the said states, or territory,. the person to whom such 
labor or service may be due, his agent or attorney, 
is hereby empowered to seize or arrest such fugitive 
from labor, and to take him or her before any judge 



IN AMERICA. • 275 

of the Circuit or District Courts of the United States, 
residing or being within the state, or before any 
magistrate of a county, city, or town corporate, 
wherein such seizure or arrest shall be made ; and 
upon proof to the satisfaction of such judge or magis- 
trate, either by oral testimony, or affidavit taken be- 
fore and certifipd by a magistrate of any such state 
or territory, that the person so seized and arrested 
doth, under the laws of the state or territory from 
which he or she fled, owe service or labor to the per- 
son claiming him or her, it shall be the duty of such 
judge or magistrate to give a certificate thereof to 
such claimant, his agent or attorney, which shall be 
sufficient warrant for removing the said fugitive from 
labor to the state or territory from which he or she 
fled." The fourth and last section of the act imposes 
a penalty of five hundred dollars, to be recovered in 
any court proper to try the same, for the benefit of 
the claimant, from any one who should obstruct him 
in rescuing his fugitive, or should rescue such fugitive 
from him, or should harbor or conceal such fugitive, 
after notice that he was claimed as such. 

As the resemblance is sufficiently obvious between 
the provision for arresting fugitive seamen and that 
for arresting other fugitives from labor, so the differ- 
ence of procedure in the two cases is easily explained. 
InHhe latter case, there being no documentary evidence 
like the shipping paper to go upon, no action was to 
be taken by the judge or magistrate till after the arrest. 
The whole responsibility of that, and of taking care 
to seize nobody to whose services he had not a legal 
right, was very properly thrown upon the claimant, 
who was thus precluded from making use of process 
of arrest obtained on his own bare oath or other 
ex parte evidence, for any fraudulent or kidnapping 
purposes — a particular in which there is an essential 
difference between the act of 1793 and that of 
1850. 

The intention of the act for the arrest of fugitive 
mariners, and that of 1793 for the arrest of fugitives 



276 DESPOTISM 

from labor, seems to be clear. That intention evi- 
dently was to provide a summary process to be used 
in cases where there was no dispute about the facts or 
as to the right of the claimant, leaving open to any 
person against whom such summary decision might be 
made, all the courts, vstate and federal, and all the 
processes, whether writ of habeas corpus, writ cle 
homine 7'eplegiando (or of personal replevin), — this last 
involving a trial by jury, — or any other commonly 
resorted to by persons restrained of their liberty, or 
seeking to get possession of the persons of others. 
The commitment of the justice in the one case, his 
warrant in the other, was to be a lawful authority for 
retaining the seaman, or adjudged fugitive from 
labor, as against any private interference ; but neither 
of them was intended to act as a bar to full investi- 
gation into the rights of the parties by the ordinary 
course of law. I am not aware that any court or any 
lawyer has ever yet pretended that the action of a 
justice of the peace in committing an adjudged de- 
serting seaman to prison, or to the custody of the 
master, is absolutely final and conclusive, turning the 
seaman over to his suit for false imprisonment, and 
not to be otherwise inquired into or reviewed by any 
court, state or federal ; and it was the pretended 
discovery in the act of 1793, of this alarming potency, 
that first raised against it that loud and increasi-ng 
clamor of which Mr. Webster so bitterly complains. 

Constant recourse to historical facts, and an explora- 
tion of contemporaneous ideas, have been deemed 
essential to the true interpretation of the constitu- 
tional provisions bearing, or supposed to bear, on 
slavery. Nor are such external aids any the less ne- 
cessary towards understanding the course of judicial 
decisions touching the same subject. The conclusion 
of the war of 1812-15 was followed by a rapid 
extension of the cultivation of cotton, which speedily 
grew, with the decline of the foreign demand for bread- 
stufts, to be the chief article of export. This extension 
of cotton cultivation, besides those constantly expand- 



IN AMERICA. 277 

ing schemes of territorial aggrandizement in a southern 
direction, so vigorously sketched by Mr. Webster in his 
7th of March speech, also gave rise to that domestic 
slave-trade — that breeding of slaves for sale — a point 
too delicate for that class of preachers who " never 
mention hell to ears polite," and therefore omitted by 
Mr. Webster, — yet chiefly instrumental in producing 
that change of opinion at the south on the subject 
of slavery upon which he dwells with so much 
emphasis in his 7th of March speech; and, indeed, a 
coincident change of opinion at the North, at least 
among ship-owners, merchants, manufacturers, and 
politicians, no less remarkable. 

This domestic slave-trade was a rude shock to that 
patriarchal character to which, on some of the older 
plantations of Maryland, Virginia and the Carolinas, 
slavery had attained some shadow of title.* By keep- 
ing constantly before the eyes of the enslaved the 
gloomy prospect of the auction-block and the slave 
trader's chain-gang, it greatly increased their inclina- 
tion to run away. If they must quit the localities to 

* This trade, at its first commencement, was not less loudly de- 
nounced in Maryland and Virginia than the African slave trade had 
been dvu-ing the' revolutionary period. John Handolph stigmatized 
it, in 1816, on the floor of Congress, as "heinous and abominable," 
«' inhuman and illegal." Even Governor Williams, of South Caro- 
lina, spoke of it, in one of his messages to the legislature of that 
state, as " a remorseless and merciless traffic," "a ceaseless dragging 
along the streets and highways of a crowd of suffering victims to 
minister to insatiable avarice," 'not only " condemned by enlightened 
humanitv, wise policy and the prayers of the just," but tending, by 
its introd'uction of slaves of all descriptions, to " defile the delightful 
avocations of private life by the presence of convicts and malefactors." 
(See Ilildreth's History of the United States, vol. vi. pp. 613-14.) 

This same traffic, however, proving the chief resource of the im- 
poverished planters of Virginia, Maryland and the Carolinas, many 
of whom now live, to use the expressive local phraseology, by eating 
their negroes, it has come to be cherished and defended in those 
states with as much zeal as the merchants of Bristol and Liverpool 
ever exhibited on behaK of the African slave-trade, or as is exhibited 
on behalf of it to-day by the petty kings who live by it on the 
African coast. 

For Mr. Webster's remarks on the change of sentiment at the 
South, and some corrections of the exaggerations into which he has 
fallen, see Appendix. 

24 



278 DESPOTISM 

which habit had so strongly attached them, they 
greatly preferred the free air of the North to the fever- 
breeding swamps of the South. It produced, also, 
another result not less deplorable. Traders for the 
southern market were found ready enough to purchase 
" likely negroes " without any particular inquiry into 
the means by which the possession of them had been 
acquired ; and in the free states nearest the slave- 
holding frontier, and in which the free colored people 
were the most numerous, so great were the abuses by 
ignorant and corrupt justices of the peace and other 
local magistrates, of the authority vested in them by 
the act of 1793, and the facilities thereby afforded 
for kidnapping, as soon to give occasion to very loud 
complaints. An attempt was even made in 1817, in 
the senate of the United States, to amend that law, 
so as to guard against these abuses ; but apprehen- 
sions lest the proposed changes might diminish the 
facilities for recovering runaways caused that attempt 
to be opposed and abandoned. The border slave- 
holders, on the other hand, provoked at the shelter, 
aid and concealment often afforded in the free states, 
and especially in Pennsylvania, to their runaw^ay 
slaves, called loudly for a still more stringent law ; 
and in 1818, after a pretty warm struggle, they suc- 
ceeded in carrying a bill of that sort through both 
houses of Congress. That bill, a sort of forerunner 
of the act of 1850, authorized the claimant to estab- 
lish his claim on ex parte evidence before some judge 
of his own state, having done which he was to be 
entitled to an executive demand upon the governor 
of the state in which the fugitive might be found, 
heavy penalties being imposed upon all who refused to 
aid in the arrest. The senate added a provision, that 
after the removal, the person removed should be proved 
to be the same with the person claimed by some evi- 
dence other than the oath of the claimant. This 
amendment, by giving the northern members time to 
bethink themselves, defeated the passage of the bill, 
which, after its return from the senate, was left, not- 



IN AMERICA. iJ/Vi 

withstanding repeated attempts to take it up, to lie 
and to die on the table of tiie house.* 

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania had lately 
(1816) given high offence to the slave-holders by de- 
ciding, in the case of The Commomveallh v. HoUoway, 
2 Seargent & Rawle's Reports, 305, apparently on 
impregnable grounds, that the children of fugitive 
slave women born in Pennsylvania more than a year 
after the arrival of their mothers in the state, were, 
born free ; and that, such children being neither fugi- 
tives, nor owing service to any body as slaves, no 
claimant from abroad could touch them. In 1819 
came before the same court the case of Wrisrht 
V. Deacoyi, 5 Seargent & Rawle, 62, on a writ of 
de homine replegianclo sued out against Deacon, 
keeper of the Philadelphia jail, who held in custody 
the plaintiff Wright, at the request, and for the tem- 
porary convenience, of a claimant who had obtained a 
certificate to remove Wright, as a fugitive from service. 
The object was to obtain a review, and a trial by 
jury, of the grounds on which the certificate had been 
granted. But the court, taking a far less lawyer-like as 
well as less statesman-like view than that of Edmund 
Randolph above cited, held, 1st. That " it required a 
law [of Congress] to regulate the manner in w^hich 
the claim should be made and the fugitive delivered 
up," and, on this ground, that the act of 1793 was 
constitutional — the first reported judicial decision ever 
pronounced on that point; and 2dly. That a certifi- 
cate granted under the act of 1793 was absolutely 
conclusive as to the rights of both parties, at least until 
the removal authorized by it had been completed ; and 
that after such certificate had once been granted, no 
state court, nor indeed any court, had any right to inter- 
fere, or to re-examine the case, either by writ of habeas 
corpus, writ of personal replevin, or any other method. 
This opinion, in wiiich the three judges concurred, 

* For further particulars respecting tliis bill, see Hildreth's History 
of the United States^ vol. vi. pp. 635-7. 



280 DESPOTISM 

was delivered by William Tilghman, the chief justice. 
It is quite short, and the following paragraph em- 
braces the most essential part of it. " It plainly appears 
from the whole scope and tenor of the constitution 
and act of Congress, that the fugitive w^s to be de- 
livered up on a summary proceeding, without the 
delay of a formal trial in a court of common law. 
' But if he had really a right to freedom, that right 
was not impaired by that proceeding ; he was placed 
just in the situation in which he stood before he fled, 
and might prosecute the right in the state to which 
he belonged." Here we see the origin of Mr. Web- 
ster's idea of extradition, an idea involving a prejudg- 
ment of the case in two of its most essential points ; 
wholly cutting off from his most obvious rights 
every person certified as a fugitive, but not such in 
reality ; and every person actually a fugitive, but cer- 
tified as owing service to a claimant having no legal 
title to such service. What a heartless, insolent 
mockery to tell a native citizen of Pennsylvania, 
about to be transferred to South Carolina on a certi- 
ficate, purchased perhaps by a bribe of five dollars — 
for it is but reasonable to suppose that some state 
magistrates may be bought at the average price es- 
tablished by the act of 1850 for United States com- 
missioners ; — what a mockery to tell such a person, 
about to be placed in a pestiferous South Carolina 
rice swamp, with an iron chain and ball of fifty 
pounds' weight attached to his leg, and an iron collar 
with four prongs to it about his neck, that his right to 
freedom will not be impaired by this proceeding; that 
he is placed in the same situation in which he stood 
before the certificate was granted, and that he can 
prosecute his right in the state to which he belongs ! 
Such is the enormous absurdity involved in this 
opinion of Tilghman's, and in that of every judge 
and lawyer by whom it has been followed, all grow- 
ing out of the gratuitous assumption, contained also in 
the very phraseology of Mr. Webster's draft of a bill, 
that every person claimed, or at least every person certi- 



1\ AMKRICA. 281 

fied, must be a fugitive, and a fugitive owing labor 
to the person who claims him. Bat besides Ihis pre- 
judgment of the case in its- most essential particulars, 
this opinion and all its echoes totally overlook the 
plain distinction between cases where the right of the 
claimant is confessed, or not contested, — as, for 
instance, in the case of tenants holding over, in which 
cases alone summary proceedings for the enforcement 
of rights are ever allowed, — and contested cases, in 
which it is the undoubted common law right of every 
party to have a thorough trial, both as to facts and 
law ; especially before so serious a step is taken as 
the delivering him up as a chattel into the absolute 
power of another. So far from infringing that right, 
the Federal constitution has taken care specially to 
guard it; and, surely, it is one from which no party, 
however humble or helpless, is to be ousted by any im- 
plication or construction, nor, indeed, by any thing short 
of the most express and positive provision in terms. 

Chief Justice Tilghman was a lawyer of moderate 
temper and decent abilities, (and the same description 
will apply to his colleagues), belonging to that very 
large class of jurists, to make one of which requires 
nothing but an ordinary share of judgment, diligence, 
and experience, — a kind of men sufficiently well 
adapted to the ordinary routine of the bench, but 
pretty certain to make some egregious blunder the mo- 
ment they attempt to step beyond it. A decided Fed- 
eralist, one of John Adams's midnight judges, Tilgh- 
man had been ousted from that seat by the repeal of the 
act under which he held office, but shortly after had 
been raised to the chief-justiceship of Pennsylvania by 
Governor McKean, at a time when that political 
gamester, having quarrelled with the more radical 
Democrats to whom he was indebted for his original 
election, had found it necessary to sustain himself in 
office by courting the aid of the Federalists. Tilgh- 
man and his colleagues probably hoped that so per- 
emptory a decision might help to quiet the rising 
excitement in Pennsylvania on the subject of the 
24* 



282 DESPOTISM 

reclamation of fugitives occasioned by the growing 
frequp/ficy of such claims, and of kidnappings alleged 
to be perpetrated under their cover, and to which 
the contemporaneous controversy as to the extension 
of slavery into Missouri added no little fervor. But 
if such was their expectation, they found themselves 
mistaken. Their harsh and unwarrantable interpreta- 
tion of the act of 1793 at once overwhelmed that 
act with universal odium. Hence arose the agita- 
tion against it of which Mr. Webster so bitterly 
complains ; an agitation in which the legislatures 
of the Middle States took the lead, by enactments 
of which the object was to put some restriction upon 
the despotic energy which Tilghman and his colleagues 
had construed into that act ; restrictions for which a 
recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United 
States seemed to open the way. 

That court, in the celebrated and mur i contested 
case of Hunter v. Martui'.s Lessee, (1 Wbcaton, 330,) 
decided in 1816, in maintaining their rigut under the 
constitution to issue to the Supreme Courts of the 
states writs of error, in cases involving t\ e interpreta- 
tion of the constitution and laws of the United States, 
had called attention to a provision of the Federal 
constitution, which, under the impulse of economizing 
Federal officers and salaries, seems, on more occa- 
sions than one, to have escaped the attention of the 
members of the earlier Congresses, though so many of 
them had sat in the Federal convention. That pro- 
vision required that " the judicial power of the United 
States shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in 
such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to 
time o?'de)' and establish ;^^ which clause was held, in the 
case above cited, to prohibit Congress "to vest any 
portion of the judicial power of the United States, ex- 
cept in courts ordained and established by itself" Upon 
the strength of this doctrine, and very soon after it was 
declared, occasion was found, in the case of certain 
parties bound over to trial for violation of the neutrality 
acts in fitting out privateers to sail under the flags of the 



IN AMERICA. 28*3 

new South American republics, to call in question 
the authority conferred by the 33d sec.^j^j^ the 
judiciary act of 1789, upon justices of the ,. ice, 
concurrently with the judges of the United States 
District Courts, to arrest and commit for trial, or to 
release on bail, persons charged with offences against 
the United States. This objection was sustained 
by some of the district judges, and Congress, in 
consequence, passed an act, (March 1, ISf?,) con- 
ferring these same concurrent powers of arrest, ex- 
amination, commitment, and release on bail, upon 
certain commissioners, whom, by a previous act of 
February 20, 1812, the Circuit Courts had been au- 
thorized to appoint for the purpose of taking affidavits 
and acknowledgments of bail in civil cases. Such 
was the origin of judicial powers exercised by com- 
missioners of the Circuit Courts. But thouglt these 
new officers were " ordained and established " by 
Congress, still they were obnoxious, in common with 
justices of the peace, to other objections already men- 
tioned — having neither the tenure of office nor the 
stated salary required by the very same section of 
the constitution, and being neither appointed by the 
president nor subject to confirmation by the senate ; 
guarantees against partiality and corruption quite as 
necessary in committing officers, and especially in such 
officers as these commissioners have come to be, under 
the act of 1845 and the fugitive act of 1850, as in those 
whose decisions as to matters of fact require the cooper- 
ation of a jury, and whose whole procedure is checked 
by the solemnity and notoriety of a formal trial. 

Availing themselves of the decision of the Supreme 
Court of the United States, in Hunter v. Murtin^s 
Lessee, that Congress had no authority to command 
the services of the state tribunals, the assembly of 
Pennsylvania, justly shocked at the new interpretation 
put upon the act of 1793 by their Supreme Court, 
passed a law, (March 22, 1820,) by which the execu- 
tion of the act of 1793 was restricted, so far as the 
state officers of Pennsylvania were concerned, to the 



284 DESPOTISM 

judges of the County Courts, who were required, 
whenever they granted a certificate, to file with the 
clerk of the county a record of the whole proceedings, 
containing the names of the parties and witnesses, 
and a statement of the evidence upon which the cer 
tificate had been granted. Aldermen and justices of 
the peace were forbidden to grant certificates at all; 
and it was made a felony to carry any negro or mu- 
latto out of the state, without process, with intent to 
hold him as a slave. Afterwards, by an act of 1826, 
passed at the earnest request of the authorities of 
Maryland, the law of 1820 was so far modified as, 
under certain restrictions, to restore jurisdiction to 
justices of the peace and aldermen ; but the other 
provisions of the act of 1820, and especially the 
penalties for removal without process, were continued 
in fuU force. 

Nor was Pennsylvania the only state to legislate 
on this subject. Her act was subsequently (1836-7) 
incorporated, with some trifling modifications, into 
the statute book of New Jersey. At a still earlier 
day the legislature of New York, in preparing a 
revised code for that state, (1827-30,) imposed several 
similar restrictions upon the action of her magistrates 
and judges under the act of 1793. She not only pro- 
hibited, as Pennsylvania had, the carrying away 
of any alleged fugitive slave without process, but all 
claimants who failed to make out their claims were 
subjected to heavy costs and damages. The same act, 
in defiance of Tilghman's decision, specially reserved 
to all alleged fugitives for whom certificates might be 
granted, a right to review that proceeding, upon 
habeas corpus or writ de homine replegiando, a pro- 
cess which involved, as we have already mentioned, 
a trial by jury ; which trial by jury was also authorized 
by a subsequent act in cases in which the rehearing 
took place under a writ of habeas corpus. 

The bench of the Supreme Court of the state of 
New York has often been occupied by very able 
jurists. At that time, under a recent reorganization, 



IN AMERICA. 



28;j 



it consisted of three judges, none of them of any ex- 
traordinary reputation, and whatever might be their 
political professions, all of them as thoroughly Fede- 
ral, at least in slave cases, as Tilglmian himself. 
This Supreme Court, in 1834, in the case of Jack v. 
Martin^ (12 Wendall, 311,) set aside these provisions 
of the state legislature by holding, 1st. That Congress 
had the right to legislate to give eflect to the clause 
in the Federal constitution respecting fugitives from 
labor ; 2dly. That the act of 1793 overrode and ousted 
all state legislation on the subject ; and 3d. That the 
object of the constitutional provision evidently being 
the return of fugitive slaves, the act of 1793 " should 
receive a construction such as, consistently with its 
terms, would operate most effectually to secure the 
end " — in other words, that any protection of the cit- 
izens of New York against false or unfounded claims 
ought not to be thought of or provided for, when such 
provision might be liable to interfere with the most sum- 
mary proceedings in favor of southern slave claimants!* 
This opinion, a mere wire-drawing in pages of what 
Tilghman had expressed in paragraphs, was pro- 
nounced by Judge Nelson; and according to a very 
remarkable coincidence, (if, in fafct, it was entirely 
accidental,) upon the first vacancy he w^as raised to a 
seat upon the bench of the Supreme Court of the 
United States, successor to Thompson, and by the 
side of Baldwin, both of whom, it is worthy of note, 
had, previously to their appointments, taken strong 
slave-holding ground on the question of extending 
slavery into Missouri. And we may add, what makes 
these coincidences the more remarkable, that since the 
date of the Missouri compromise, not a single northern 

* This case afterwards -went up to the New York Court of Errors, 
but was decided there (14 Wendall, 507) in favor of the claimant, on 
the ground that the plaintiff, hy his pleas, had confessed himself the 
claimant's slave. Any expression of opinion by the court on the con- 
stitntionalitv of the act of 1793, or upon the New York statute provis- 
ions, was carefully avoided, although, Chancellor Walworth, sitting as 
one of the judges, took that occasion to pronounce a formal opinion, 
already referred to, against the constitutionality of the act of 1793. 



286 DESPOTISM 

man — with the exception of Judge McLean, who was 
appointed for political convenience to get him out of 
an office which it was desired to fill otherwise — has 
been raised to the bench of the Supreme Court of 
the United States, except under similar circumstances ; 
at least the only other possible exception is Judge 
Grier, the successor of Baldwin, whose reputation, 
previous to his appointment, — though, like his prede- 
cessor, a man of decided legal ability, — was so merely 
local, that I am not at present able to specify the 
particular services, if any, which he had rendered to 
the slave power. But that the man was well known, 
his violence, I may even say his ferocity, on the bench, 
in behalf of the law of 1850, sufficiently shows. 

Prior to the elevation of these latter serviceable 
judges, and while Thompson and Baldwin still sat in 
the Supreme Court, the question of the constitution- 
ality of the act of 1793, and of the true interpretation 
and effect of the clause in the Federal constitution 
respecting the delivering up of fugitives from service, 
came before that court in the celebrated case, already 
repeatedly referred to, of Prigg- v. Pcmisijlvania. 
Prigg, a citizen of Maryland, had been indicted, 
under the Pennsylvania act of 1826, for carrying out 
of that state, without process or warrant, a negro 
woman whom he claimed as his slave, and with her 
several of her children, one of which, born more than 
a year after the mother's arrival in Pennsylvania, ac- 
cording to a decision of the Supreme Court of 
Pennsylvania already cited, was born a free person. 

After a great deal of controversy between the two 
states, Prigg having been demanded as a fugitive 
from the justice of Pennsylvania, and the governor 
of Maryland, as usual in such cases, refusing to deliver 
him up, by an arrangement of the state legislatures 
the question of the validity of the law of Pennsyl- 
vania was brought before the Supreme Court of the 
United States on an agreed statement of facts, in the 
form of a special verdict, in which it was admitted, 
among other things, that the woman carried off had 



IN AAIEUICA. 287 

been Prigg's slave, and had escaped from him into 
Pennsylvania, and also that one of the ehildron car- 
ried off with her had been born in Pennsylvania more 
than a year after her arrival there. 

_ All the judges agreed that Prigg was entitled to be 
discharged from the indictment; but in the view 
which they took of the law of the case, they differed 
not a little. Story, who pronounced the judgment 
of the court, began by a most remarkable avowal. 
The court, he said, did not mean to be held to apply- 
to any other clause whatever of the constitution, any 
rules which, in the present case, they might see fit to 
lay down for interpreting the provision respecting 
fugitives from labor. In fact the constitution was so 
peculiar an instrument, made so much in the spirit of 
compromise, that all general rules for its interpretation 
seemed out of the question. It must be interpreted 
in the same spirit in which it had been made, and each 
clause must be handled by itself, according to the good 
discretion of the court. 

In promulgating this new rule of judicial interpre- 
tation, or rather this declaration of independence and 
disregard of all rules, perhaps calculated to increase 
the already somewhat too " glorious uncertainty of 
the law,-' but also very convenient for timid and time- 
serving tribunals, the learned judge appears to have 
forgotten — or perhaps he only intended to confirm by a 
striking practical application of it — the strong remark 
of Lord Camden, that "the discretion of a judge is 
the law of tyrants^ in the best ofttimes caprice, in the 
worst every vice, folly, and passion of which human 
nature is liable." Its immediate object, no doubt, was 
to save his brethren, and indeed himself, from certain 
obvious charges of inconsistency, some of which will 
be presently pointed out. 

After this singular preamble. Story proceeded to 
state a point in which all the judges except McLean 
agreed; namely, that the clause in the Federal consti- 
tution respecting fugitives from labor is of potency 
and vigor enough, independently of any special Fed- 



288 DESPOTISM 

eral or state legislation, to give to a party to whom 
labor is really due, under the laws of any state, the 
right, in any and every other state, to seize, without 
any process, and to carry off his fugitive whenever he 
can do so without any act of violence amounting to 
a breach of the peace. This point was in perfect 
accordance with the opinion of Edmund Randolph, 
heretofore cited. It had been expressly ruled by the 
Supreme Courts of New York and Massachusetts in 
the cases of Glen v. Hodges^ (9 Johnson, 67,) and of 
Comnionivealth v. Griffith^ (2 Pickering, 11,) as v/ell as 
by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in the case 
of Wright V. Deacon. And according to the view set 
forth at the beginning of this section, such a right 
of seizure, without process, and without any special 
legislative provision for it, must exist in all the states 
whose local laws, as is generally the case, concede a 
similar right of recaption whenever the control or 
custody of the person of one individual is vested, by 
the law, in another. But of course all such recaptions 
are subject, as in all other cases of the exercise of a 
similar power, to have their grounds inquired into by 
the state courts. 

Yet though supported by such authorities, the rule 
of constitutional interpretation here adopted seems 
in direct conflict with a decision made by this same 
Supreme Court of the United States only the 
very year before, in a case involving the effect and 
force of a provision in the constitution of the state 
of Mississippi. That constitution contained the fol- 
lowing clause : " The introduction of slaves into 
this state as merchandise or for sale shall be prohibit- 
ed from and after the first day of May, 1833 ; provided 
the actual settler or settlers shall not be prohibited 
from purchasing slaves in any state in this Union, and 
bringing them into this state for his own individual 
use till 1845," — which clause, in the case of Graves 
Sf al. V. Slaughter^ (15 Wheaton, 449,) had been set 
up as invalidating a note given for slaves brought into 
Mississippi as merchandise, and sold there subsequent- 



IN AMERICA. 289 

ly to May 1833. In that case, for the protection of 
the slave-traders, who had retained Clay and Webster 
as their counsel, the court held that this constitutional 
provision was a mere injunction on the legislature, 
and of no effect till first it had been complied with 
by the enactment of a law for enforcing it. It is, 
however, but justice to state, that three of the judges, 
Story, McKinley, and Baldwin, dissented from this 
decision, while a fourth, Daniel, who now concurred 
with the majority, was not then a member of the 
court. The two former had held, consistently enough 
with their present opinion, that the constitutional 
provision was efficacious in itself, and the contract 
therefore void. Baldwin did not deny the right of a 
state entirely to prohibit the introduction of slaves as 
a matter of internal policy, but he regarded the pro- 
vision in the constitution of Mississippi as a bare 
attempt to regulate the internal slave-trade, and to 
give to residents in the state advantages over citizens 
of other states, and on that ground he held the pro- 
vision void, as conflicting with the exclusive right of 
Congress to regulate trade between the states. 

Such had been the rule of constitutional interpreta- 
tion held by the Supreme Court of the United States 
in 1841. In 1842 the convenience of slave-holding 
seemed to require a totally opposite decision, and, 
true to their doctrine of being tied up by no rules, 
the majority of the court now ran headlong with 
Story into the opposite extreme. Not only did they 
find in the bare constitutional injunction, with respect 
to fugitives from labor, an indefeasible right of recap- 
ture, independent of all special legislation state or 
national, — they allowed Story to put forth, in their 
name, the extravagant statement that "the constitu- 
tional clause puts the right to the service and labor 
upon the same ground, and to the same extent, in 
every other state as in the state to w hich the slave 
escaped, and in which he was held to service or labor; " 
and that " any state law that interrupts, limits, delays, 
and postpones the right of the owner to the immediate 
25 



290 DESPOTISM 

possession of his slave, or the immediate command of 
his services^ operating pro tanto as a discharge, is un- 
constitutional." Whence it would follow, that a Vir- 
ginia slave-holder has the right, not only to recapture 
his runaway slave in Massachusetts, but, if he pleases, 
there to beat, work, imprison, or starve him, at his 
pleasure, short of immediate death, (even the statute 
against cruelty to animals being unconstitutional as 
to him) ; and, if the slave be a woman, of compelling 
her to share his bed as his concubine, — all of which 
are " incidents " in Virginia to the right of slave-hold- 
ing ; — and to continue to enjoy these incidents for any 
period that he may choose to remain in Massachusetts. 
Some such rights have been claimed, indeed, by some 
of the slave-holders as appertaining to them in the 
territories ; but never yet, so far as I know, have any 
of them pretended, under any circumstances, to any 
such rights within the limits of a free state. Even 
the claimants of fugitive slaves have been too modest 
and forbearing to attempt any thing of the sort, not- 
withstanding this high judicial warrant for doing so. 

But not content with thus giving to the master of a 
fugitive slave, found within the limits of a free state, 
all the rights, including the right of recapture without 
warrant, which he would have had at home, Story, 
with some other judges, (McLean now supplying the 
place of Baldwin, who dissented,) goes on to hold, not 
only to the right, but to the imperative duty, of Con- 
gress to reenforce this constitutional provision by special 
legislation. The master " may not be able to lay his 
hand upon the slave. He may not be able to enforce 
his rights against persons who either secrete, or conceal, 
or withhold the slave. He may be restricted, by local 
legislation, as to the modes of proofs of his ownership, 
as to the courts in which he shall sue, and as to the 
actions which he may bring, or the process he may 
use to compel the delivery of the slave ; " — that is to 
say, he may be put upon precisely the same level as 
to his remedies with other claimants of property or 
personal rights, whether native or foreign. But this. 



IN AMERICA. 291 

according to the Supreme Court of the United States, 
would be a gross and intolerable violation of the pe- 
culiar and sacred rights secured by the constitution to 
the owners of fugitive slaves ; for the sustentation of 
which rights it is the duty of Congress to interfere, 
and, under the judicial aiUhoriti/ vested in the general 
govemvient, to provide, at whatever risk to free cit- 
izens of non-slave-holding states, a swift and certain 
method of delivery, such as will leave to fugitive slaves 
no possible chance of escape. The constitutionality 
of the act of 1793 is thus placed by the Supreme 
Court of the United States upon the express ground 
(Mr. Webster and other apologists for the act of 1850 
to the contrary notwithstanding) that the surrender 
of a fugitive from labor is, " in the strictest sense, a 
controversy/ between the parties, and a case, under the 
constitution of the United States, loithin the express 
delegation ofjudiciaJ, poiver, given by that instrument." 
As to the objection that the justices of the peace and 
other state magistrates in whom the authority to grant 
certificates is concurrently vested are state officers, the 
court hastily pass by that, with the suggestion, that 
though not bound to exercise this jurisdiction, still 
they may do so, as long as the states do not pro- 
hibit them. But suppose this assertion to be consist- 
ent (which it hardly seems to be) with the doctrine so 
peremptorily laid down in Martin v. Hunter'' s Lessee, 
or supposing this new doctrine to be the better law, 
which must be esteemed very doubtful, still it does 
not touch the other and unanswerable objections of 
want of proper tenure and salary. 

We come now to another point of the case, in 
which there was less unanimity. Story, Wayne, 
McKinley, and Catron held — and on this point they 
were again supported by McLean, thus still making 
a majority of the court — that not only was it the duty 
as well as right of Congress to enforce by legislation 
the surrender of fugitives from labor, but that the right 
to legislate on this subject was vested exclusively in 
Congress. It was this point doubtless that chiefly 



292 DESPOTISM 

recommended the decision of the court to Story. Not 
only did it gratify his ultra Federal ideas, in which, 
though raised to the bench as a JefFersonian Democrat, 
he far outran those eminent Federalists, Chief Justices 
Marshall and Taney, but it seemed to him, as he 
afterwards boasted in private conversation, to strike a 
deadly blow at the surrender of fugitive slaves, by 
relieving the states from all obligation to cooperate 
in it. Of the four judges who went with Story on 
this point, three were from slave-holding circuits ; but 
as those circuits were remote from the frontier, they 
did not feel the immediate smart either of having lost 
slaves themselves, or of sympathy with friends and 
neighbors who had^ Taney and Daniel were difl'erently 
situated, and these two border judges, supported by 
Thompson, whom the instinct and habit of servitude 
naturally carried along with them, protested with all 
their might against the decision of the majority. 
They agreed, indeed, with Story and the others, — for 
Baldwin also went to this extent, — that the states were 
prohibited from passing any special laws that might 
in any way conflict with the most summary recovery 
of fugitive slaves ; but they insisted also (see Taney's 
opinion, p. 627,) that the constitution enjoined it as 
a duty, no less upon the states than upon Congress, 
"to protect and support the owner while endeavoring 
to obtain the possession of his property." That is to 
say, while the states were prohibited by the Federal 
constitution from affording the least protection to 
their own citizens, seized by kidnappers under pretence 
of being fugitives from labor, at the same time they 
were bound to afford all possible aid to slave-owners, 
even at the imminent risk of facilitating kidnapping! 
Such is another of the absurd consequences, of which 
this case is so full, to which false assumptions in- 
evitably lead, in legal no less than in mathematical 
reasoning. It were well that lawyers and judges 
were as sensible as mathematicians to the logical 
effects of a reductio ad absurdum. 

Baldwin, assenting to the constitutional right 



IN AMERICA. 293 

mainlined by all the judges except McLean, of re- 
caption and removal without warrant, notwithstand- 
ing special state laws to the contrary, concurred in the 
judgment of the court becavise it was admitted that 
the woman carried off was Prigg's slave. He also ad- 
mitted, that if any special legislation on the subject 
were needed, Congress alone could so legislate. But he 
held such legislation unnecessary, and therefore uncon- 
stitutional, thus seeming to come up very nearly, if not 
quite, — for we have no detailed statement of his views, 
— to the doctrine maintained in this section. Baldwin 
was a lawyer, and a very able one ; nor is his author- 
ity to be set aside on the ground of any anti-slavery 
leanings. His antecedents have been already alluded 
to, as indeed they w^ere by himself, in his opinion 
delivered only a year before, in the case already men- 
tioned of Graves v. Slaughter, — an opinion in which 
he went far beyond any of the court in maintaining 
that the Federal constitution recognizes slaves as 
property as much as a bale of cotton ; and that, as 
such, gangs of slaves might be driven to market 
through intervening free states. He had also, on the 
same occasion, attacked, with no little acrimony, the 
idea set up by McLean, and seemingly countenanced 
by some of the other judges, that the constitution 
regards slaves not as property, but only as persons, 
denouncing it as the first step in a career of doctrine 
certain to prove fatal to the whole slave-holding 

system. 

McLean agreed with the other judges, that the act 
of 1793 was constitutional, and that the states had 
no right to legislate specially on the subject of the 
surrender of fugitive slaves. But he differed from 
them in maintaining, 1st. That Congress had aright, 
in certain cases, to impose duties on state officers and 
tribunals, and that this matter of the surrender of 
fugitives from labor was one of those cases ; and 2d. 
That the states, under their acknowledged police 
power, had a right to preserve their own peace, and 
to protect the rights of their citizens, by prohibiting 
25*= 



294 DESPOTISM 

the removal of fugitives from justice, except under a 
certificate granted in conformity to the act of Con- 
gress. This view he ingeniously supported by re- 
ferring to the act of 1793, which required, in express 
terms, that all persons arrested as fugitives from labor 
should be taken before a magistrate, and a certificate 
obtained in order to their removal ; nor, indeed, 
would it have been possible for his colleagues to have 
answered him on this point, except by denouncing 
that portion, at least, of the act of 1793 as unconsti- 
tutional. 

Three general remarks may be made upon the 
opinions delivered in this case. 1st. Forgetting the 
chariness of the constitution and of the act of 1793, 
as to the use of such shameful terms as slaves and 
slavery^ — a decorum observed even by the act of 1850, 
— the judges, in their opinions, blurt out these obscene 
words, which ought to raise a blush on the cheek of 
every true man, at least of every judge, in a nation 
whose government is based upon the declaration that 
all men are born free, with a frequency that seems 
almost affected, as if, like strumpets, desirous to show 
how brazen they had grown. 2d. While the right 
of the slave-holder to his fugitive slave is urged with 
a vivacity which could not be exceeded, had the sur- 
render of fugitive slaves been the sole end and aim 
of the constitution, not one word is dropped, except 
cursorily, in the opinion of McLean, about the dangers 
from kidnappers and false claimants, or about the 
duty of protecting, against the terrible fate of slavery, 
native citizens, and even fugitives from labor, claimed 
by scoundrels having no title to their services. 3d. It 
is not a little remarkable, that not one of the judges 
made the slightest allusion to the child born in Penn- 
sylvania, and free according to the decision of the 
Supreme Court of that state, but carried off into 
slavery along with its mother. The state law might 
be inefficacious in the case of a person admitted to 
be a slave, but was it also void in its application to a 
native-born citizen of the state, seized and carried off 



IN AMERICA. 295 

into slavery without any title or legal warrant? Per- 
haps on the principle de minimis non curat lex^ — the 
law does not concern itself with trifles, — the kidnapping 
a negro child was thought to be too insigniiicant a 
matter to engage the attention of so grave a tribunal. 
Or are we to understand the court as reversing, by silent 
implication, the doctrine of the Supreme Court of 
Pennsylvania, and holding that the children of fugi- 
tive slaves, whenever and at whatever period born, are 
also slaves ? 

There is still one other extremely important obser- 
vation to be made upon this case. The point brought 
directly to the notice of the court was, the validity 
of a special law of Pennsylvania, in relation to fugi- 
tives from labor coming within her limits from other 
states. This special legislation the court held to be 
void, and, it w^ould seem, soundly enough, whatever 
we may think of some of the grounds and reasons on 
which they based their decision. But, except by the 
sweeping, yet very nebulous and unsubstantial tails 
of some extravagant generalities the practical appli- 
cation of which the court itself, it may reasonably 
be supposed, would be inclined to contract within 
some defensible limits, the case of Prigg v. Pennsijl- 
vania does not touch, it does not even evince the 
least consciousness of the vastly more important 
questions upon which, according to the views main- 
tained in this section, all rights and duties, existing 
under the constitution of the United States, in the 
case of fugitives from labor, must depend ; the ques- 
tions, namely, 1st, of the right of the states to regu- 
late, by general laivs, the procedure to be adopted, in 
all cases, for reclaiming, within their limits, actual 
control over the persons of others by parties who 
possess the legal right of control ; and 2d, of the neces- 
sity that citizens of other states should be satisfied 
with being placed, in this respect, on a level with 
resident and native citizens. These are points as yet 
unadjudged by the Supreme Court of the United 
States, or by any state court, except that of Penn- 



^96 DESPOTISM 

sylvania, in the unfortunate case of Wright v. Deacon^ 
already sufficiently criticized. 

The decision of the case of Prigg v. Pennsylvania 
failed to give satisfaction any where. Every where it 
was greeted with mingled groans and hisses ; in the 
North, as a timid and disgraceful surrender of the 
rights of the free states, and of the plainest principles 
of common justice; in the South as not having gone 
half far enough. The free states very generally re- 
sponded to it, not by repealing the statutes which this 
decision declared void, but by new laws, forbidding 
their officers or magistrates to act under the statute 
of 1793, or their jails to be employed for the detention 
of fugitives. Mr. Webster, in his Newburyport let- 
ter, stigmatizes this latter prohibition, as putting a 
serious obstacle in the way of trial by jury, in the 
case of alleged fugitives from labor. Lame apology 
for his abandonment of his own bill, since the mar- 
shals of the United States are amply authorized, by 
a joint resolution of both houses of Congress, to pro- 
vide, in all cases where the states refuse the use of 
their jails to the Federal authorities, other safe places 
for the custody of their prisoners, under which provis- 
ion, have we not seen the very court house of the 
city of Boston converted into a slave jail, and by the 
order of the city authorities, surrounded by chains, 
under which even the state judges were obliged to 
stoop, some of them, indeed, seeming even to make a 
merit of their alacrity in doing so ? Nor is it true, as 
Mr. Webster seems to insinuate, that this refusal of 
the use of state jails was one of the devices of the 
treasonable abolitionists. So far from it, it was first 
brought into use by that good Federalist, Governor 
Strong, so highly eulogized by Mr. Webster in this 
very same Newburyport letter, in conjunction with 
the legislature of the Federal and patriotic state of 
Massachusetts, and with the full approbation, if we 
mistake not, of Mr. Webster himself. The occasion 
was the attempt of President Madison, of which 
the Federalists did not approve, to compel the British 



IN AMERICA. 297 

government, by retaliations, to relinquish their scheme 
of treating as deserters the natives of Ireland cap- 
tured in the American ranks, by shuting up in the state 
jails certain British oflicers, prisoners of war, witli 
the prospect of death before them, should Great 
Britain set the example. Afterwards, in the war, 
almost, which sprung up in the Western States, about 
the years 1820-1, against the second Bank of the 
United States, a like expedient was resorted to by the 
state of Ohio, by refusing the use of its jails for the 
confinement of prisoners, in all cases in which that 
bank was concerned; and it was upon that occasion 
that the joint resolution above referred to was adopted. 
Upon the present occasion, also. Congress attempted 
to meet the legislation of the states by an act, passed 
in 1845, extending the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court 
commissioners, as well to the cases of fugitives from 
labor, as to the closely related one of deserting sea- 
men. But for all this, fugitives from servitude rapidly 
increased, and reclamations of them were attended 
with more and more difficulty. Every where in the 
free states they received aid and comfort, at least to 
the extent of a cup of cold water, a crust of bread, 
and a barn to sleep in. Many of them turned lec- 
turers, and, travelling from village to village, revealed 
the secrets of the prison-house in artless and homely 
appeals to the natural sympathies of the human heart, 
which washed away, in trickling tears, all the studied 
and specious sophistries of the most learned and elo- 
quent advocates of despotism. The South became 
more exasperated than ever. Those who had lived 
and grown famous by defending and expounding the 
constitution, hoping, at least, to levy new contribu- 
tions, if not to mount to high office in the midst of the 
panic, raised anew the cry of " The Union in danger ; " 
and never did the old English Tory cry of " The 
church in danger " drive both clergymen and laymen 
into greater follies. Such were the circumstances 
under which, by the aid of half a dozen or more con- 
gressional northern candidates for the presidency, the 



29S DESPOTISM 

act of 1850 was passed; an act which adopts, in express 
terms, all the judicial extravagances, based on the 
constitutional clause respecting fugitives from labor 
and the act of 1793, adding, besides, others of its own ; 
an act breathing, in every line, that disregard of all 
right, except the right of the strongest, upon which 
the system of slavery is founded, and most character- 
istically forced through the House of Representatives, 
without the allowance of any debate upon it. Omit- 
ting the numerous other objections which have made 
that despotic enactment of a professedly democratic 
legislature a finger-post for the scorn of all the world, 
it has be^n enough for the present purpose to point 
out the particulars in which it directly conflicts with 
the constitution of the United States. The opinions 
of some Federal judges, confidently pronounced, and 
even ostentatiously volunteered, may affect to make 
light of these objections. They may even be slurred 
over and evaded by some state courts from whom 
better things might have been expected. But they 
have not been answered, nor obviated ; and, like the 
drops of blood on the hands of the murderer, however 
muffled and hidden, for the present, under the judicial 
ermine, they still bear that silent but indestructible 
testimony which will one day bring the guilty to 
due punishment. 

There is no more admirable chapter in Gibbon than 
that in which he has given a condensed but compre- 
hensive sketch of the Roman jurisprudence, — a chap- 
ter which goes far to show, that an historian, accus- 
tomed to generalize, and to view things in the whole 
as well as by piecemeal, may have clearer apprehen- 
sions of a system of laws than were unitedly pos- 
sessed by scores and hundreds of laborious and erudite 
jurists, who had made those same laws the sole study 
of their lives, but who had still no conception of them, 
except in detail. 

After a humorous description of some of the formali- 
ties, the knowledge of which was confined to the early 



IN AMERICA. 299 

Roman lawyers, and which continued to be observed 
long after their origin and meaning were forgotten, 
and even after the lawyers themselves had learned 
to laugh at them, Gibbon proceeds as follows : — 
" A more liberal art was cultivated, however, by the 
sages of Rome, who, in a stricter sense, may be con- 
sidered as the authors of the civil law. The alteration 
of the idiom and manners of the Romans rendered 
the style of the Twelve Tables less familiar to each 
rising generation, and the doubtful passages were 
imperfectly explained by the study of legal anti- 
quarians. To define the ambiguities, to circumscribe 
the latitude, to apply the principles, to extend the 
consequences, to reconcile the real or apparent con- 
tradictions, was a much nobler and more important 
task, and the province of legislation was silently 
invaded by the expounders of ancient statutes. Their 
subtle interpretations concurred with the equity of the 
prsetor to reform the tyranny of the darker ages : 
however strange or intricate the means, it was the 
aim of artificial jurisprudence to restore the simple 
dictates of nature and reason, and the skill of private 
citizens was usefully employed to undermine the pub- 
lic institutions of their country," 

The precise and simple truth can seldom be ex- 
pressed in epigrams. The last clause of this in- 
structive quotation is liable to a criticism which Gib- 
bon's sparkling phraseology somewhat too frequently 
extorts, — that of sacrificing to rhetorical point. To 
remove the rotten materials which ignorance, thought- 
lessness, or the prevailing interest of the moment had 
incorporated, substituting for them " the simple dic- 
tates of nature and reason," can hardly, with any 
justice, be said to be an undermining of the institu- 
tions of one's country, since institutions thus piously 
repaired, may stand forever, instead of being left, by 
the failure of rotten supports, to fall by their own 
weight. But whatever may be thought of the justice 
of this criticism, the leading American lawyers and 
courts of this present generation seem determined 



300 DESPOTISM 

that no future Gibbon shall bring any similar charge 
against them. Assuming and conscientiously believ- 
ing, as no doubt all of them who have consciences 
do, — though conscience is not commonly regarded 
as indispensable to a " consummate lawyer," — that 
slavery is one of " the public institutions of their 
country," guaranteed and endorsed by the Federal 
constitution, so far from imitating the example of the 
Roman lawyers, all their skill and subtlety is em- 
ployed, not in reforming the tyranny of darker ages, 
but in twisting new whips and forging new fetters, to 
perpetuate that tyranny to the latest times, and to 
diffuse it over the whole face of the country. What 
I have written on the subject of the legal basis of 
slavery, I have not written with the least expectation 
of producing any effect upon lawyers or judges already 
committed to different views ; or, indeed, upon any 
lawyer more than forty years of age. Harvey did 
not convert a single physician above that age to his 
view of the circulation of the blood ; and as to new 
views, whether true or false, lawyers and doctors, for 
obvious reasons, are very much alike. 

At the present day, however, especially in America, 
the current of public opinion sets strongly in favor 
of personal freedom ; and to attempt, whether by 
legislative or juridical devices, to dam up and stop 
short any current of public opinion, is a very hazardous 
thing. The experiment may seem to succeed for a 
moment. It may answer sufficiently well where only 
a temporary object is to be accomplished. The rush- 
ing waters of refreshment and fertility may be stayed. 
The black and sharp rocks may be laid bare, and 
industrious political fishermen may take much fish in 
the pools. But presently, when least expected, and 
without a moment's warning, the obstruction gives 
way before the still and silently rising water, which 
sweeps off dam, fishermen, every thing in the way to 
inevitable destruction ; a destruction which over- 
whelms, also, many innocent dwellers on the river's 
bank, who, though they foresaw and remonstrated, 



IN AMERICA, 301 

had not been able to prevent the disaster. Such 
indeed is the catastrophe, as inevitable as it is for- 
midable, with which we are threatened at the present 
moment. The dam has been building this twenty- 
years or more. The accumulating waters must and 
will come down. To discover the means so to guide 
them that the evil of slavery may be swept away with- 
out leaving others behind it hardly less deplorable, is a 
problem to which all men of sense and judgment, whe- 
ther slave-holders or non-slave-holders, ought forthwith 
to apply themselves. It is a question that interests all 
alike — for, much as we may quarrel among ourselves, 
and loudly as, like Adam and Eve over the tasted 
apple, we may accuse and berate each other, we are all 
in this matter, equally concerned, equally unfortunate, 
equally guilty. If the South has been the boisterous 
youth who solicited, and even demanded, what the 
blindness of passion made him think almost his right, 
the North has been the weak, willing, profligate 
maiden, who yielded — for money — what she knew to 
be wrong. We are all, slave-holders and abolitionists, 
citizens of the same community ; nor is it possible 
for us to denationalize ourselves. Our state lines are 
fast sinking into little more than county lines ; even 
the old state rights Democratic party has adopted the 
cry of — The Republic one and indivisible ! We are 
all in the same ship, and must sink or swim together. 
We are slave-holders or abolitionists, not because we 
differ much either in moral character or intellectual 
capacity, either in sentiment or opinion, but mainly 
from differences of social and topographical position. 
So completely alike, in all fundamental points, are 
some of our most ardent abolitionists and some of 
the boldest of our southern defenders of slavery, that 
if they could, in a night, be made to change places, 
the one finding himself in possession of a cotton 
plantation and a hundred slaves, and the other the 
editor of a northern abolitionist newspaper, with a 
tolerable prospect of going to Congress on that in- 
terest, — and supposing, also, the memory of past com- 

2e 



302 DESPOTISM 

mitments to be at the same time obliterated,^ — there 
is nothing whatever in their moral or intellectual con- 
stitution which would prevent them from exactly and 
most conscientiously filling up each other's present 
places. To the common eye, the moon appears, ac- 
cording to the relative position of the object and the 
observer, a disc of light, or an absolute non-existence. 
It is only to the philosopher that the new moon and the 
full moon are the same thing. But in the present 
age, we are all growing to be philosophers, and differ- 
ence of position cannot long stand out against coin- 
cidence of intellect and sentiment. The abolition of 
slavery is the great work of the generation now in 
being. What thoughtful man doubts it? Mr. Calhoun 
certainly did not. Our Revolutionary Fathers did 
what they could. Peace to their ashes and honor to 
their memory, spite of the diatribes of those content 
with nothing short of every thing! The abolition 
of slavery in the Northern States, wretchedly and 
inefficiently as that matter was managed ; its exclu- 
sion from the great North West; and the abolition 
of the African slave-trade, were things great in them- 
selves, and in their consequences mighty. Who can 
doubt that, if slavery had not been abolished in Mas- 
sachusetts, some wealthy Boston supporters of the 
law of 1850 would be, at this moment, exhibiting 
their attachment to the Union by filling their houses, 
perhaps their cotton factories, with slaves purchased 
in the South ? Who can doubt that, if the African 
slave-trade had not been abolished as seasonably as it 
was, negroes, freshly imported from Africa, would be 
now selling in the New Orleans market for a hundred 
dollars a head ? And what hope would there be for 
liberty, w^ere the fertile states of the North West now 
cultivated, as, but for the ordinance of 1787, they 
would have been, by servile hands, not servile by con- 
sent, but servile by compulsion ? 

The abolition of slavery was desired, for their own 
states, by all the more intelligent citizens of Mary- 
land and Virginia, even more ardently than any where 



IN AMERICA. 



303 



at the North ; but they had neither the courage nor 
the means to overcome the mountains of ignorance, 
prejudice, and interest which rose up before them. 
They were obliged to content themselves with repeat- 
ing, after Lord Bacon, " Time is the greatest innova- 
tor," and with hoping from their children what they 
could not accomplish themselves. But the result has 
only served to confirm the philosophy of Lord Bacon, 
whose mention of Time as the great innovator is so 
generally quoted in a sense totally different from that in 
which he uttered it. " Surely," he says, " every new 
medicine is an innovation ; and he that refuses new 
remedies must expect new evils ; for Time is the great- 
est innovator; and if Time alter all things to the 
worse, and wisdom and council alter them not to the 
better, what shall be the end ? " 

A pregnant question truly. What shall be the end ? 
• — a question the answer to which must make a part 
of An Inquiry into the Feasibility, Expediency, and 
Necessity of the Abolition of Slavery in the United 
States of America, with Outlines of a Practical Plan 
for its Accomplishment — a second treatise to which 
the present one is intended as an introduction. 



APPENDIX. 



In confirmation of the statement contained in the text, I give 
here some extracts from Mr. Webster's too famous 7th of March 
speech, (1850.) It has been attempted to glorify this speech by 
giving to it the title " For the Constitution and the Union." Less 
grandiloquently, perhaps, but quite as truthfully, it might have 
been entitled " A job for the presidential chair." As if to magnify 
the sacrifice he was about to make to the slave-holding Moloch, 
the orator prefaces his declaration of adhesion to the fugitive bill 
of 1850, " with all its provisions to the fullest extent," by some 
historical statements, such as might rather have justified an indig- 
nant opposition to that disgraceful piece of slave-holding legisla- 
tion, and which even gives color to the conjecture that a large part 
of that famous speech was prepared before Mr. Webster had quite 
made up his mind to barter away his voice, and vote, and perma- 
nent reputation for the chance of southern votes in the presidential 
caucus. 

" Let us consider for a moment," says Mr. Webster, " what was 
the state of sentiment north and south in regard to slavery at the 
time when this constitution was adopted. A remarkable change 
has taken place since ; but what did the wise and great men of 
all parts of the country think of slavery then ? In what estimation 
did they hold it at the time when this constitution was adopted ? 
It will be found, sir, if we carry ourselves by historical research 
back to that day, and ascertain men's opinions by authentic rec- 
ords still existing among us, that there was then no diversity of 
opinion between the North and the South on the subject of sla- 
very. [This is rather overstating the matter. There was at the 
time of the convention, and in the convention, a zealous pro-slavery 
party, but it consisted exclusively of citizens of Georgia and 
the Carolinas.] It will be found that both parts of the country 
held it equally an evil, a moral and political evil. It will not be 
found that either at the North or the South there was much, 
though there was some, invective against slavery as inhuman and 
cruel. The great ground of objection to it was political ; that it 
weakened the social fabric ; that, taking the place of free labor, 
society became less strong, and labor less productive ; and there- 
fore we find, from all the eminent men of the time, the clearest 

(304) 



APPENDIX. 305 

expression of their opinion that slavery is an evil. . . . The 
eminent men, the most eminent men, and nearly all the conspic- 
uous politicians of the South, held the same sentiments ; that 
slavery was an evil, a blight, a scourge, and a curse. There were 
no terms of reprobation of slavery so vehement, in the North at 
that day, as in the South. The North was not so much excited 
against it as the South, and the reason is, I suppose, that there 
was much less of it at the North, and the people did not see, or 
think they saw, the evils so prominently as they were seen, or 
thought to be seen, at the South. 

" Then, sir, when this constitution was framed, this was the light 
in which the Federal convention viewed it, [i. e. slavery]. That 
body reflected the judgment and sentiments of the great men of the 
South. The question then was, how to deal with it, and how to deal 
with it as an evil. They came to this general result. They thought 
that slavery could not be continued in the country, if the importation 
of slaves were made to cease ; and, therefore, they provided that, after 
a certain period, the importation might be prevented by the act of the 
new government. ... It may not be improper here to allude to 
that, I had almost said, celebrated opinion of Mr. Madison. You ob- 
serve, sir, that the term slave, or slavery, is not used in the constitution. 
The constitution does not require that ' fugitive slaves' shall be de- 
livered up. It requires that persons held to service in one state, 
and escaping into another, shall be delivered up. ]\Ir. Madison 
opposed the introduction of the term slave, or slaven/, into the con- 
stitution ; for he said that he did not wish to see it recognized by 
the constitution of the United States of America, that there could 
be property in men. 

" Now, sir, all this took place in the convention of 1 787 ; but, 
connected with this, concurrent and contemporaneous, is another 
important transaction, not sufficiently attended to. The convention 
for framing this constitution assembled in Philadelphia in May, 
and sat until September, 1787. During all that time, the Congress 
of the United States was in session in New York. ... At 
the very time when the convention in Philadelphia was framing 
this constitution, the Congress in New York was framing the ordi- 
nance of 1787 for the organization and government of the territory 
north-west of the Ohio. They passed that ordinance on the 13th 
of July, 1787, at New York, the very month, perhaps the very day, 
on which these questions about the importation of slaves and the 
character of slavery were debated in the convention at Philadelphia. 
So far as we can now learn, there was a perfect concurrence of 
opinion between these two bodies ; and it resulted in this ordinance 
of 3787, excluding slav'ery from all the territory over which the 
Congress of the United States had jurisdiction. . . . Three 
things are quite clear, as historical truths. One is, that there was 
an expectation, that on the ceasing of the importation of slaves from 
Africa, slavery would begin to run out here. That was hoped and 
expected. Another is, that, as far as there was any power in 
26* 



306 APPENDIX. 

Congress to prevent the spread of slavery in the United States, 
that power was executed in the most absolute manner, and to the 
fullest extent. ... Why, there it stands ! The vote of every 
state in the Union was unanimous in favor of the ordinance, with 
the exception of a single individual vote, and that individual vote 
was given by a northern man. This ordinance, prohibiting slavery 
forever north-west of the Ohio, has the hand and seal "of every 
southern mem.ber in Congress. It was, therefore, no aggression 
of the North on the South. The other and third clear historical 
truth is, that the convention meant to leave slavery in the states as 
they found it, entirely under the authority and control of the states 
themselves." 

Yet, after all this historical detail, including the emphatic state- 
ment of the care taken, under the auspices of Mr. Madison, not to 
admit into the constitution the idea that there could be property in 
men, Mr. Webster has the inconsistency to speak, in the very next 
paragraph, of the establishment of the constitution of the United 
States " with a recognition of slavery as it existed in the states," 
apparently intending to concede that the Federal constitution ex- 
pressly recognized slavery as an existing legal institution of the 
states ; whereas the utmost that can be found in it is an obscure 
recognition, and that only by implication, of the existence in the 
states of a class of persons neither free nor bound to service for a 
term of years, and that a recognition of the fact merely, without 
the slightest acknowledgment of any legality in it. But this mis- 
representation of the constitution was essential to afford Mr. Web- 
ster a colorable pretence for fishing after southern votes, with his 
favorite bait of devotion to the constitution and the Union — a very 
melancholy piece of fishery, as it proved on this particular occasion, 
— not even resulting in a glorious nibble. The cunning and vora- 
cious southern pike proved, indeed, altogether too nimble and adroit 
for a fisherman whose chief practice had been, — and a very suc- 
cessful practice too — in catching northern gudgeons with the same 
sort of bait. 

The paragraph above alluded to is as follows, containing, along 
with the treacherous concession above criticized, and some addi- 
tional historical mistakes, a good deal, however, of wholesome 
truth. " This was the state of things, sir, and this the state of 
opinion, under which those very important matters were arranged, 
and those three important things done, that is, the establishment 
of the constitution of the United States with a recognition of 
slavery as it existed in the states [this is the admission criticized 
above] ; the establishment of the ordinance for the government of 
the North-Western Territory, prohibiting, to the full extent of all 
territory owned by the United States, the introduction of slavery 
into that territory, while leaving to the states all power over slavery 
in their own limits ; and creating a power in the new government 
to put an end to the importation of slaves, after a limited period. 
There was entire coincidence and concurrence of sentiment between 



APPENDIX. 

the North and the South, upon all these questions, at the period of 
the adoption of the constitution. [Mr. Webster here acrain ignores 
the existence, at tliat time, of the pro-slavery party of South 
Carolina and Georgia, Avhich has since became predominant in the 
Union.] But opinions, sir, have changed, greatly changed ; changed 
North and changed South. Slavery is not regarded in the South 
[it would be more correct to say in Maryland and Virginia, for 
North Carolina, even then, was undetermined upon this point] now 
as it was then. . . . What, then, have been the causes which 
have created so new a feeling in favor of slavery in the South, 
which have changed the whole nomenclature of the South on that 
subject, so that, from being thought of and described in the terms 
I have mentioned, and will not repeat, it has now become an institu- 
tion, a cherished institution, in that quarter ; no evil, no scourge, 
but a great religious, social, and moral blessing, as I think I have 
heard it lately spoken of? I suppose this, sir, is owing to the rapia 
growth and sudden extension of the cotton plantations of the 
South. . . . The age of cotton became the golden age of our 
southern brethren. It gratified their desire for improvement and 
accumulation, at the same time that it excited it. The desire grew 
by what it fed upon, and there soon came to be an eagerness for 
new territory, a new area, or new areas, for the cultivation of the 
cotton crop ; and measures leading to this result were brought 
about rapidly, one after another, under the lead of southern men at 
the head of the government, they having a majority in both branches 
of Congress to accomplish their ends. The honorable member 
from South Carolina [Mr. Calhoun] observes, that there has been a 
majority all along in favor of the North. If that be true, sir, the 
North has acted either very liberally and kindly, or very weakly ; for 
they never exercised that majority efficiently five times in the 
history of the government, when a division or trial of strength 
arose. Never. Whether they were out-generalled, or whether it 
was owing to other causes, I shall not stop to consider; but no 
man, acquainted with the history of the Union, can deny, that the 
general lead in the politics of the country, for three fourths of the 
period that has elapsed since the adoption of the constitution, has 
been a southern lead." 

See " Speech of the 7th of March, 1850, for the Constitution 
and the Union." Webster's Works, Everett's edition, vol. v. pp. 
333-339. 

How lamentable that, after thus exposing the moral and political 
weakness of the North, Mr. Webster should proceed to give a new, 
and, if possible, still more humiliating instance of it, by voting for 
Mason's unconstitutional and atrocious fugitive bill ! 

Oh, what a fall was there, my countrymen ! 
Then you and I and all of us fell down, 
And bloody treason triumphed over us. 



irr "^j 



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